Source: whistleblower-net.de
A civil society coalition of NGOs in Germany has criticised the failure of a new draft whistleblower protection law to transpose the EU Directive on whistleblowing.
The organizations Whistleblower-Network, Transparency International Germany and the Society for Civil Liberties have published this statement raising the alarm about the failure of the draft law, and demanding a comprehensive transposition of the EU Directive on the protection of whistleblowers.
The Federal Ministry of Justice led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) had presented the draft law in December 2020, which has now been rejected by the CDU/CSU party because the draft provisions went beyond the minimal EU requirements. This means that the opportunity to enshrine comprehensive protection for whistleblowers in law before the end of the current legislative period has probably been missed.
Due to its limited legislative competency, the European Union was restricted to drafting a Directive only to cover the protection of whistleblowers in the area of EU regulations. The Commission has however repeatedly encouraged Member States to introduce provisions that extend the scope of protections to cover breaches of national law to ensure a comprehensive and coherent framework. Whistleblowing protection experts have been concerned that EU governments are still considering taking a minimal verbatim approach to implementing the Directive creating a hybrid system which absurdly would provide better protection of whistleblowers raising minor breaches over EU law than those reporting serious offences under solely German law. Some legal experts have also argued this absurdity would not be justifiable under the constitutional protection of equality.
The central argument of the CDU/CSU party in rejecting the Bill is a supposed burden it would place on companies, despite civil society having long highlighted the business case for strong whistleblowing protection which prevent loss, reduce costs, increase incentives for investment and prevent scandals such as Wirecard. Further, clear rules through a broad scope of application are in the interest of those required to establish whistleblowing channels under the new legal requirements. Especially since a wider scope of application does not change anything about the obligation to set up whistleblowing channels as prescribed by the EU, which is why an extension of the scope of application of the law would hardly cause any additional cost.