WASHINGTON, D.C. | January 28, 2022 — National Whistleblower Center (NWC) celebrates the Latvian parliament transposing the EU Whistleblower Directive into national law on January 20, 2022.
The EU Directive on whistleblower protection, passed October 2019, gave the 27 EU member states over two years to enact a compliant whistleblower statute. The deadline for compliance was December 19, 2021, and at that time many EU countries had failed to fulfill their Parliamentary commitment.
Latvia joins Cyprus, Denmark, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, and Sweden as one of seven countries now in compliance with the Whistleblower Directive. Along with Whistleblowing International, NWC has ardently encouraged all member countries to swiftly adopt high quality programs for their citizens.
Further, Latvia stands alone as the only country to explicitly include protections for whistleblowers that bring forth evidence of climate crimes. Latvia is an emergent leader on climate issues, as shown by its ambitious National Energy and Climate Plan, and serves as a model for its neighbors. NWC holds climate whistleblower protections as central to our mission and celebrates this outstanding law.
NWC is disappointed with the lack of transparent progress from Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania, and Spain, and encourage these countries to adopt law that includes: a designated whistleblower protection agency; mandatory rewards for successful claims; anti-retaliatory protections; swift mechanisms for employee reinstatement and compensation after wrongful termination; and strong protections for climate whistleblowers.
It is not too late: NWC urges all EU member countries to draft and enact strong whistleblower protections without delay. We will continue to monitor the situation, and we encourage any legislators with questions to contact us. We look forward to celebrating further developments in Europe.
NWC Executive Director Siri Nelson is available for comment. For more information, contact National Whistleblower Center at info@whistleblowers.org.
