Whistleblowing In the European Union

The EU Whistleblower Directive, adopted in 2019. shifts whistleblowing in the European Union from a marginal issue to a world leading example of empowering public voices. What explains this shift? The EU Whistleblower Directive cannot be understood without an inquiry into its legislative background. The latter also sheds new light on EU law-making practice, particularly how public participation can have a considerable influence and how the Commission steers legislation, to abide by principles of conferral and subsidiarity, when primary law is silent on its legislative powers. Central in this article is the legal assessment of the EU Whistleblower Directive. The article, however, seeks to go a step further. Drawing on a range of incremental legal developments in whistleblowing, it offers the first sustained account of what it argues has become a field of law of its own EU whistleblower law.