Belgium is not the only bad pupil in the European class. The vast majority of EU Member States did not meet the deadline of 17 December 2021 for the implementation of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019 on the protection of individuals who report infringements of Union law. Nevertheless, Belgium has already taken some important steps: for example, there is a draft legislative proposal for the private sector on which the social partners in the NAR have given their opinion. However, this shows that there is still a lot of work to be done. An adopted law is only expected by the summer of 2022.

The EU adopted the directive in 2019 in response to some high-profile (mainly tax) scandals uncovered by whistleblowers. Such a system has existed in the United States for some time, and a regulation was introduced in France in 2016 (‘loi Sapin 2′). In Belgium, for the time being, we had to make do with some specific regulations for the FSMA and, among others, staff of the federal and Flemish authorities.

The transposition of the EU Whistleblower Directive therefore entails an important evolution for the Belgian authorities, organisations, companies and employees. The personal scope is very broad – both the private and the public sector are targeted – which immediately results in several federal ministers and all the Regions being competent for the transposition. It should therefore come as no surprise that the transposition of the directive is proving to be a complicated...

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