At the meeting of Member States' ambassadors to the EU (Committee of Permanent Representatives - Coreper II) on Friday 15 March, Member States supported the provisional interinstitutional agreement reached on the Directive to protect whistleblowers.
During the night of 11-12 March, the European Parliament and the EU Council reached a political agreement that made the hierarchy for reporting wrongdoing significantly more flexible - between the internal channel (within the organisation) and the external channel (a competent authority) - with a minimum threshold of 50 employees before the internal channel must be set up (see EUROPE 12212/11).
During the exchanges, Belgium spoke to express its preference for a threshold of 250 employees, while acknowledging the opportunity given to SMEs to create a common internal channel. Ireland has reportedly indicated its willingness to attach a minute explaining its reluctance to accept the final agreement. In essence, the Irish representative fears that the agreement’s lack of ambition will have an impact on the level of ambition in the protective framework at national level.
The Czech Republic expressed its concerns about the excessive breadth of the Directive's scope. Estonia would have liked the abuse of rights to be excluded from the scope of the legislative act. Italy and the Netherlands reiterated their full support for the agreement. Although reluctant to increase flexibility between internal and external reporting channels, France, Hungary and Austria did not speak on the issue.
The text is expected to be voted on in the Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs (JURI) on Monday 18 March, before the vote in plenary session scheduled for April under the 'corrigendum' procedure as a result of a lack of time for lawyer-linguists to tidy it up. The next European Parliament will have to vote on the final version of the agreement, which will then be submitted to the Council for a vote.
The risk of a blocking minority being able to organise itself by that date is almost nil, according to a diplomatic source. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)