Source: parlament.gv.at
Parliamentary questions asked of the Federal Minister of Labor Mag. Martin Kocher by MP Dr. Johannes Margreiter, that the transposition of the EU Directive on Whistleblowing has been underway in Austria since June 2020.
The published letter, dated 02 August 2021 states that initial discussions with government departments and federal states resulted in a first internal draft for a law and a subsequent meeting with the ombudsman and data protection office set the proposed scope and content of a new federal law – which is described to be the protection of reports of ‘breaches or violations of specific legal norms including soft law and codes of conduct.’
Further evaluation of the law is planned for late summer and submission to parliament in the autumn. The EU Directive must be fully implemented by the 17 December 2021.
A joint progress report published by Transparency International and the Whistleblowing International Network in February found that Austria had made minimal or no progress in transposing the Directive and that the process had been neither transparent nor inclusive as no information had been proactively shared by the Austrian government.”