The importance of whistleblowing. The protection of whistleblowers in European Union

Abstract

Whistleblowing currently is highlighted as significant and beneficial tool to fight with criminal offences and illegal misconducts at the workplace. As employees are the closest persons to give a witness about different types of possible wrongdoings within a company, they should be fully protected from any possible punishments and retaliations. Thus the European Commission proposed new directive, for a purpose to provide high level of protection of those, who is brave and assertive to take a personal risk in general public interests and to save the society from different type of violations. This paper will mainly focus on the meaning of whistleblowing, its features, legislative aspects, the protection of whistleblowers in European Union. Brief analysis of familiar cases as well as benefits and drawbacks of whistleblowing are presented in this paper.