Shadow rapporteur on the draft own-initiative report by Rozière on protecting whistleblowers, Rosa Estaràs Ferragut (EPP, Spain) is reported to be preparing a raft of amendments to important aspects of the text for a vote at the European Parliament’s plenary session on Tuesday 24 or Wednesday 25 October.
The Christian Democrats and Conservatives displayed a degree of reticence during the talks on the report about the option of allowing whistleblowers to reveal facts or practices directly to the media without first using the organisation’s internal whistleblowing processes and then external processes via the competent authorities (see EUROPE 11870). The EPP abstained in this connection from the final vote at the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee (JURI) in early October (see EUROPE 11875).
We understand that Estaràs Ferragut asked her counterparts at the EPP to back a number of amendments to scrap the possibility of allowing whistleblowers to raise the alarm publicly and to favour raising the facts internally or with the competent authorities, arguing that public revelations could have a disastrous impact on individuals’ and companies’ reputation, even if they turn out to be false. Revelations to the public should only be done as a last resort in clearly defined circumstances, according to the shadow rapporteur.
Estaràs Ferragut would like to go ever further and scrap the reversal of the burden of proof, which currently lies with the employer in the consolidated text voted through earlier in the month, and also scrap the idea of creating a joint pan-European fund for whistleblowers that would be ‘financed in part from monies recovered or proceeds from fines.’ Finally, the rapporteur seems to oppose the idea of anonymity, preferring confidentiality instead.
Under the European Parliament’s operating rules, an own-initiative report can be amended if the rapporteur so desires or if a tenth of MEPs (76) request it.
The exact date of the vote will be known after the meeting of the Conference of Presidents in Parliament this Thursday. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)