The Rights of Informants in the Center of the Social and Political Life of the EU

Abstract

The paper evaluates inter-institutional negotiations on the Directive on the protection of whistleblowers’ rights. The author shows how the European Parliament succeeded in inducing the Council to compromise in a long and persistent struggle, while the Member States took initially opposite positions on the three-stage informing procedure. The author demonstrates complexity of the legislative process in the European Union, which may take years until legislators give their consent. The positions of MS on the issue of information hierarchy as well as their motivations are shown. The author comes to conclusion that the EU institutions managed to reach agreement on the Directive thanks to forthcoming European Parliament elections, on the eve of which it was important to demonstrate the concrete results of legislative activity.

Keywords

• whistleblowers
• protection of rights
• directive
• inter-institutional negotiations
• trade unions
• european parliament
• eu commission
• eu council
• blocking minority