29 October 2026
These remarks were edited for publication.
Opening address by Dr Vigjilenca Abazi, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the European Whistleblowing Institute.
The European Whistleblowing Conference is becoming a key platform for stakeholders from across the wider whistleblowing ecosystem to come together, to learn from one another, and to meet one another. We bring together national authorities from across Europe and beyond; leading academics, including some of the very voices that laid the foundations for many of the ideas and concepts we discuss today; legal professionals; compliance and integrity officers; civil society; and journalists.
It would be apt to say that this is more than just a conference. This is a community gathering. And this community matters, because whistleblowing depends on an entire system: people who are prepared to speak up, institutions that are prepared to listen, and authorities that have the independence and capacity to act. Across four panels, bringing together leading expertise and experience, we will address the most pressing issues in whistleblowing law and policy today.
AI whistleblowing
We begin with artificial intelligence, looking at two central questions: What does it mean to be an AI whistleblower? And how is AI transforming whistleblowing itself?
We are delighted to hear perspectives from, among others, the EU AI Office here in Brussels, the Deputy Ombudsperson from Croatia, and lawyers representing AI whistleblowers. With very little regulation and oversight, and with narratives of racing for dominance seemingly at all costs, how are we, as a society, to make sense of what is actually taking place behind closed doors?
Especially when even the companies developing these technologies appear to be struggling to understand the full extent and severity of the models they are creating, as recent developments involving OpenAI and Hugging Face have illustrated.
And as an employee at Anthropic raised the alarm on his way out, the world was reminded of the potentially lethal consequences and extraordinary speed of acceleration with which artificial intelligence is developing.
National security
We are living at a time with more than 130 active armed conflicts in the world. This is the highest number recorded since the Second World War.
We are deeply honored to be joined today by the Ukrainian delegation, who will share first-hand what a country facing an unjust war is going through, and how it continues to work to establish and maintain robust whistleblowing systems while confronting the horrors of war. A war that affects all of us. Our distinguished Ukrainian speaker, the Deputy Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, encountered an unexpected disruption on his way to join us today: his train from Kyiv to Warsaw had to be evacuated. His journey is a reminder of the extraordinary circumstances in which some of our colleagues continue this work. Their commitment to integrity and accountability does not stop when circumstances become difficult.
Rule of law
The global challenges to the rule of law also have a direct impact on whistleblowing.
At the heart of whistleblowing lies a simple idea: someone rings the bell for others to hear. For others to take notice. For others to act.
But what happens when governments themselves seek to abolish independent whistleblower authorities that are doing their job to protect whistleblowers? This is what we have witnessed in Slovakia – not once, but twice. Legislation was passed to dismantle the authority. The pressure against its President and her family was enormous.
One of the European Whistleblowing Institute's core efforts this year has been to galvanize public opinion, including through media outlets such as the Financial Times and Politico, to support legal challenges before the Slovak Constitutional Court, and to urge the European Commission to use its rule-of-law toolkit in defense of the country's independent whistleblower authority.
We were elated when the Slovak government made a U-turn, in a context where the country faced the threat of losing more than €500 million in EU funding. This was a significant development. For the first time, the European Commission made a clear and direct connection between whistleblowing and the defence of the rule of law.
The Slovak case reminds us that whistleblower protection is not an isolated policy issue. It is connected directly to the independence of public institutions, the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms, and the defence of the rule of law.
It also demonstrates the importance of cooperation across national borders. Civil society, lawyers, independent authorities, journalists, and European institutions can each play a role in ensuring that these protections are not merely written into law but upheld in practice.
We will hear more about these developments in our third panel today, directly from one of the lawyers working on the ground, while coordinating their efforts internationally.
Challenges
Of course, the challenges facing whistleblower authorities are not only political. They are also challenges of resources, of trust, and of being asked to do a great deal with very little.
The Director of the Dutch Whistleblower Authority will take us through both the challenges posed by AI and the possibilities for national authorities to help create a better regulatory and compliance environment, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses.
We are equally delighted to learn more from the Republic of Moldova, where considerable work is under way, at an incredible pace, to bring its systems into line with EU standards.
Culture
We all know that law has its limits. Limits to what it can achieve. And limits, particularly in a context where we are still missing the substantial fines that can sometimes provide an effective incentive for compliance.
That is why we wanted to explore what it means to move beyond law and towards shifts in culture. To better understand the legal, societal, and organizational cultures that shape whistleblowing: whether people feel able to speak up, whether they believe they will be taken seriously, and whether they trust the systems that are meant to protect them.
We will hear directly from the European Commission about the experience of harmonizing whistleblowing across Europe, as well as from specialists in organizational culture about who actually feels safe enough to blow the whistle.
Courage is not always loud
I would like to leave you with one final thought. Courage is not always loud.
Sometimes it is a person who sees something wrong and decides not to look away. Sometimes it is the decision to speak when silence would be safer. Many, if not all of us in this room, either already have or might be put in such moment of courage. But the measure of a democracy is not simply whether people have the courage to speak. It is whether they can do so without fear, whether they are heard, and whether the institutions entrusted with the public interest have the courage to act.
Our task, therefore, is not merely to ask people to be brave. It is to build a Europe in which courage is met with protection and speaking up with action.
