Challenges in Whistleblowing Practice: Retaliation, intersectionality barriers, and lack of clarity
The challenges to whistleblowing in Europe are many and include retaliation against whistleblowers and CSOs (civil society organizations) who assist them, barriers based on gender and race, and a lack of clarity of the law. These and other challenges were the focus of Panel II: Challenges in Whistleblowing Practice of the European Whistleblowing Conference, moderated by Bruno Galizzi, EWI’s Co-Founder and Director of Policy.
“There are serious threats to whistleblowing in Europe”, stated Benedek Jávor, Head of Budapest’s Representation to the EU. Among them, he listed a “heavy decline in democracy” overall in Europe, increasing attacks against independent NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and CSOs at the European level, and the decline of an independent judiciary in many EU Member States.
“Against this background, we have enough reason to be worried about the future of whistleblowing. Without a strong rule of law and protection for democratic institutions in the Member States, there will be no safe environment for whistleblowers.”
Jávor, who is a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and one of the key MEPs who spearheaded the campaign for the EU Whistleblowing Directive in 2016, spoke of the democratic backsliding in his home country. According to him, examples abound in Hungary of whistleblowers who went public and were met with retaliation and hate campaigns. “Whistleblowers are playing an extremely important role in unveiling the anti-democratic wrongdoing of the political elites. We have to be aware that, beyond the existing regulation, we need the entire democratic ecosystem to make that possible”, he said.
Challenges to CSOs
Speaking on the challenges faced by CSOs, Marie Terracol, Whistleblower Protection Lead at Transparency International, noted that CSOs can be victims of smear campaigns, SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), and can be threatened with loss of funding. Further, in some countries, the role of CSOs is not recognized in whistleblowing protection laws. “That creates a number of problems [because] it is not clear the protection that they have as CSOs”, said Terracol.
“For example, what happens if an authority asks the CSO to reveal the identity of a whistleblower who went to them for advice? Is it considered a public disclosure? In some of the laws, it is really unclear, and obviously, it presents a number of risks to the whistleblower.”
As an example of good practice, Terracol presented Latvia, where the law attributes a specific role to CSOs. In Latvia, she explained, CSOs are entitled to provide consultations to whistleblowers, are empowered to reply to authorities and in court on behalf of whistleblowers, and can act as intermediaries between the whistleblower and the person who handled their report.
Overcoming intersectionality barriers
Kate Kenny, Professor of Business and Society at the University of Galway and one of the partners in Project BRIGHT, shared her research on the work of civil society across Europe and how it relates whistleblowing with gender, race, and intersectionality. “What we found is that, although there are many civil society organizations that would like to do this, resources are tight”, she said.
Taking an intersectionality approach, Kenny explained, means considering the social categories of those who fall outside of a norm in any given workplace. For example, if the norm is male, able-bodied, middle class, and without any accessibility issues, if someone falls outside any of these categories, the law is probably not serving them as it should.
One way of overcoming such challenges is with the use of technologies like vaults. These allow the disclosure to be archived until enough people come forward, where a claim becomes materially valid. Other examples shared by Kenny include having a helpline within the organization, anonymous reporting, and having a mandate to speak up when wrongdoing is witnessed.
“What we have there is an issue that could be related to systemic discrimination or violence against gender or race that would normally be hidden but technology allows the power of individual whistleblowers to be leveraged.”
Zooming in on Spain
Joan Llinares Gómez, the former Director of the Agency for Anti-Fraud and Corruption of Valencia (Agència de Prevenció i Lluita contra el Frau i la Corrupció de la Comunitat Valenciana – AVAF), explained that, in Spain, protection authorities exist only on a regional level. “The national authority is not yet in operation in a clear lack of compliance with the directive”, he said.
Gómez detailed that, during his tenure as AVAF’s Director, between 2017 and 2024, several instances occurred when the courts refused to apply the law to protect whistleblowers. He gave the example of a police officer from Alicante who denounced corruption in his town and started to face retaliation in the form of isolation, denial of leave and trainings, loss of wages, and unfounded disciplinary measures. Even though AVAF granted him the status of protected person, both Valencia’s High Court of Justice and the Supreme Court denied him protection. It was only the Constitutional Court that reversed those decisions and recognized the status of protected person initially granted by AVAF.
“We have a problem: if the decisions of the protection authorities are not equal to those of the judicial authorities, it will be hard to protect whistleblowers. We can be letting whistleblowers believe they are being protected and, in the end, the judicial power can stop this protection. This way, protection can become a trap for whistleblowers.”
This event, led by the European Whistleblowing Institute, took place in Brussels, on 4 April, and was a collaboration with the Network of European Integrity and Whistleblowing Authorities (NEIWA), Transparency International (TI), Transparency International Greece, Whistleblowing International Network (WIN), EDHEC Business School, University of Galway, and Georg-August-University Göttingen. This event is part of Project BRIGHT 101143234, which is co-funded by the European Commission.
