As the 17 December 2021 deadline for implementation of the EU Whistleblower Directive approaches, organisations in Germany need to be considering what policies and reporting procedures they should put in place.
The deadline for implementing the Whistleblower Directive (EU 2019/1937) expires at the end of the year. It provides that certain organisations must, once this is implemented into national law, introduce a reporting system for reporting breaches of EU law confidentially. However, in Germany, such a national law does not yet exist. In this article, we show how organisations can already design conduct policies and reporting systems to meet the requirements of the Directive.
Many organisations have internal codes of conduct in which they commit to moral values and distance themselves from socially unethical behaviour such as harassment, discrimination or bullying. These behavioural guidelines communicate to employees that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated. In addition, and combined with an effectively designed reporting system, they can help to counter any employee accusations of improper handling of inappropriate behaviour. This is all the more important as a national law to implement the EU Whistleblower Directive is not yet in sight: the Justice Ministry's first draft of the Whistleblower Protection Act was rejected in April 2021. Below, we set out what a code of conduct can cover and what the minimum requirements for a reporting system are.
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