EU gives 'high-level' protection to whistleblowers
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
'Mr Watt claimed that corruption was "permitted to flourish to the benefit of all the institutions' elites" and said that despite his action and that of other "whistle-blowers", the EU accountancy system was now "so degraded it cannot police itself".'
'According to Quatremer, severe pressure and even harassment is an ongoing problem in the European Commission, and several officials in the Commission’s legal service are reported to have committed suicide in the last years.'
http://www.againstcorruption.org/BriefingsItem.asp/?id=12647
http://www.brusselstimes.com/eu-affairs/14535/senior-officia...
Is there any reason why someone who is more interested than me in becoming a head of state may think otherwise?
[1] which I define politically as “could I get a headline out of lowering income tax, national insurance, or non-UK equivalent term, by cancelling this line item?”, and I think the EU counts as such for the UK. 1% GDP, IIRC.
If it's winner takes all then you're right. The head of state is indeed in charge of all departments.
If it's more of a parliamentary system then the head of state needs to put x members in charge depending on the outcome of the vote. So if there's x percentage points of the population who voted for the opposing party then x percentage members of the cabinet should be of the other party.
When it's not winner takes all, it doesn't matter if a percentage of the population thinks someone is a weak leader. The other percentage will still have a say in the executive branch of the government. It becomes trickier as a leader because you not only have to have support of your own party but also from your coalition partners. (EU multi-party politics in a nut shell)
Before anyone responds, I'm not claiming this is better or worse than other systems!
Good point. I'm in the US, so it's overwhelmingly 'winner takes all.'
I think you're confusing "parliamentary system" with something else.
Corruption is the obvious one. Keep in mind that running for elections has a cost, people that pay for it are more likely to expect to gain something in return.
There is also the non-obvious but still existent problem of the Law simply getting in the way, so decision makers try to act outside of it.
"Advertising" can get you to the place where the U.S. is well where you can get 49% of the population who have 51% of the influence to think one party is legitimate (e.g. they take money from the koch brothers, kiss the ring of every republican donor, promise not to raise taxes; the left wing version is "green new deal", "tear up men accused of sexual harassment", ...) and not care what the other people think.
In political reality, you want to own the truth, and establish the narrative, and you never want facts to get in the way.
Would be the cynical take.
An aspiring head of state that desires personal access to the state's funds will prefer accounting practices that are irregular, and will outlaw whistleblowing on these practices.
You may wish to be a noble ruler, setting just institutions and regulations for the smooth operation of society. A petty ruler would wish to enrich themselves and their friends and not worry about the consequences.
Laura Pignataro's story is a sad one indeed, and the Selmayr affair as a whole was probably instrumental in getting impetus behind this directive. Selmayr himself will probably be removed once Juncker goes at the end of this year.
The ECJ has even ruled that forcing MEPs to divulge how their allowance is spent would undermine their privacy.
> Travel Allowance - This allowance is for travel to the Parliament [...] on presentation of receipts MEPs are refunded the actual cost of any travel tickets purchased by them plus time and distance allowances for attending official Parliamentary meetings
What is required, at the moment, is strong political oversight, particularly from the media. Light is the best disinfectant.
Post was faced with opposition and threats that are so serious that she is now living in hiding in a village in the north of the Netherlands and that she has a long-standing conflict with her employer, the EC. It does not recognize her as a whistleblower and threatens with punitive measures.“
https://twitter.com/roelie_post/status/1118129218087469058
I still like the EU, but this type of "one rule of me, one rule for thee" is awful and will destroy confidence in the institutions.
Also, check out the government activity exclusion in the GDPR.
I keep seeing comments drawing parallels to Snowden and Assange, but they were leaking government wrongdoing (should I say perceived?) publically, not corporate wrongdoing. Nothing in here suggests that if some EU nation was committing some crime that you could parade the facts around publicly with no ramifications.
Even the US has a fair amount of protection for corporate whistleblowers, however they don’t take kindly to people revealing government secrets publicly. There are ways to whistleblow internally, assuming that said thing isn’t something the whole government is in on (such as the Snowden leaks).
The two main conclusions of this study are "There is a strong economic case for whistleblower protection" and "Whistleblower protection must be effectively be implemented to reap the rewards"
[1]https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publi...
My mind went immediately to Ed Snowden. It would be nice if an European country decided to use this directive as political cover to grant him asylum.
Because the 2% requirement doesn't kick in for another 5 years.
In big matters, bigger stick diplomacy rules.
In other words, we are still living in the jungle, the rules are just for the commoners.
I forgot that one.
Or maybe it has to do with the IMF granting a huge loan package to Ecuador just before they removed his refugee status.
But nah, it isn't that, it's probably because the US improved on human rights violations in the time he was given refugee status until today. That would make sense at least as an argument, even if it ignores the reality as reported by amnesty international.
Or do you mean that the US doesn't violate human rights and therefore no one could ever get a refugee status from US corruption?
Yeah, that treaty. We who don't see this as lawful are just silly gooses, the gov said it is fine. It must be.
I forgot the treaty where powerful countries get to pressure small countries into giving up refugees.
- the sitting US President is an unpopular one, picking a fight with him is not particularly unpalatable in Europe at the moment;
- this directive, once translated into national law (which, admittedly, could take some time), will probably grant Snowden explicit protection from extradition in some countries (many extradition treaties require equivalent crimes te be present into local legislation);
- the HK families of refugees who helped Snowden back then, have recently been accepted into Canada to protect them. This is a signal that the taboo is somewhat broken.
- the EU parliamentary campaign has just gone into full swing. It's the perfect time for grand gestures, particularly from governments that feel under assault by populist forces.
There's nothing to indicate this would happen.
"the EU parliamentary campaign has just gone into full swing. It's the perfect time for grand gestures, particularly from governments that feel under assault by populist forces."
So the EU is going to make a 'grand gesture' by poking the entity that provides it's security in the eye? For what reason? An intervention into US domestic affairs?
Trump could feasibly respond by pulling US forces out of parts of Europe under threat by the Russians, i.e. the Baltic states which Putin has been trying to drag back under Russia's thumb in the same way they did Crimea, only to be thwarted by a solid NATO response coordinated and backed by the Americans.
And of course the fact there's a trade war brewing for which the Americans have a little bit of an upper hand with a major trade deficit.
It would be a huge mistake for Europe to unnecessarily provoke Trump at this point.
Most extradition treaties require extradatable crimes to have an equivalent in local law. This directive, once adopted nationally, would explicitly ensure Snowden's actions are not crimes, hence effectively shielding him.
> So the EU is going to make
When it comes to foreign policy, there is no "the EU". There are 27 (+1) states with different aims and priorities. See for example the current crisis in Lybia with France effectively supporting one (murderous) side over the other (slightly less murderous) side that most EU countries still support.
> An intervention into US domestic affairs?
Snowden's actions were clearly global in nature.
> Trump could feasibly respond by pulling US forces out of parts of Europe
Which may or may not have anything to do with the country that accepted Snowden. Trump could also launch thermonuclear war, on that line of thought. Please don't go hyperbolic, there is no need.
> of course the fact there's a trade war brewing
"Brewing"? I don't think we are living in the same universe. The Orange One has waged war from the minute he got in office.
> It would be a huge mistake for Europe to unnecessarily provoke Trump at this point.
As I said, there is no "Europe" as such, on these matters. But I understand it's difficult to appreciate from that side of the pond.
No, they were not. The legal consequences of his actions have nothing to do with Europe.
"Trump could also launch thermonuclear war, on that line of thought. Please don't go hyperbolic"
??? Your words are hyperbolic, not mine.
Trump and the Americans should and well remove their military protection of the EU - the current state of affairs whereby Europe has an external party pay for their security is 'hyperbolic' and untenable. Hypocritical, actually.
This is a realty that clouds all discussions.
"As I said, there is no "Europe" as such" - yes there is. Trade negotiations are done at the EU level. The 'trade war' is between US and EU, not between US and France/Germany. Tariffs are applied to them equally.
Finally: Snowden is not a whistleblower. Some of his actions are tantamount to whistleblowing, the rest are tantamount to high treason. Snowden released a lot of information on how the US spies on foreign adversaries, such as Russia, which has nothing to do with 'whistleblowing'. His whistleblowing activities can be pardoned, but he'd be in jail for the rest of his life, or executed for treason.
Do you know how the internet works?
> Trump and the Americans should and well remove their military protection of the EU
I am afraid you simply do not understand what the real priorities of the US are, how power is projected in the modern world, and how it is exercised.
> Snowden is not a whistleblower.
I guess we'll have to disagree and leave it at that.
the case Assange, and Moreno show what happens if only the internal politics of the host country swing in favor of the ally.
imo Snowden is safest in Russia which is unlikely to be an US ally any time soon.
from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25085592
"> The Nine Eyes Alliance refers to the same group plus Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Norway. The 14 Eyes Alliance adds Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden."
However, back then, like everyone else, Merkel was bewitched by Obama's silver tongue - despite him literally spying on her at the same time, but that only ended-up with her having to feign outrage at the discovery.
Preserving the right of disclosure of criminal behavior on the part of foreign governments is a substantial and underrated benefit.
But apart from that, at least learn to correctly misuse it: if “the costs would make life miserable”, it’s not virtue signaling, by definition.
Everybody claims to love whistleblowers and truth until they are the target of the expose.
Take Assange and Manning. He was loved and praised by the left when he exposed war crimes primarily of the bush era ( iraq, afghanistan ). The right hated him as a foreign spy and hacker. A few years later, Assange exposed the left and now the left hates him for being a foreign spy and hacker and the right ( at least some of them ) loves him.
These "high-level" protections is meaningless if the whistleblowers target the truly powerful. Then all kinds of accusations and charges will be used to take down the whisteblower.
Bernie and a bunch of Democrat front-runners criticized his arrest. Corbyn did too. Hillary Clinton hates him (for showing her dirty tricks on the DCCC), but not exactly "the left".
Whsitleblowers need protection from cooperations and nation states.
Of course, as you seem to he referring to Assange, just remember the UK is (it claims) leaving the EU, and is currently run by people who don’t really know what they want but are fairly sure that whatever it is involves getting on well with the USA.
Bit offtopic for this thread, but I'd call that a very peculiar read of the situation. The Withdrawal Agreement that May is pushing involves a permanent de facto customs union with the EU, ongoing regulatory alignment with the EU, and military integration with the EU. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for the US.
It's quite weird to see how much the news and information cycle in the UK is based on rumours and quotes of random MPs. Like, seriously, try to think for a second from the EU's perspective and it's just plain obvious how it's not in the EU's interest to keep the UK in an arrangement that it's uncomfortable with and that has no clear legal standing. Everything gets more costly and complex - think just of external trade negotiations, import taxes, quality standards and norms, etc which all fall into a place of uncertain "could change at any minute" state in such a situation.
The EU is not some weird evil creature.thstsboutnto get you. The EU is the set of countries that for decades have been your closest allies. No one is trying to rip you off. Except, it seems, for the Tories that prefer to divide the UK and insult all their allies over internal power struggles, rather than actually try and act in the country's interest.
It's very much in the EU's economic interest to keep the UK as a captive market for their exporters. It's very much in the EU's financial interest to put the UK on the hook for any liabilities it cares to dream up. It's very much in the EU's institutional interest to inflict a humiliating defeat so as to dissuade other members from leaving. And I don't see that if the WA goes through there'd be much "uncertainty"; the UK would be screwed, no two ways about it, unless it throws Northern Ireland under the bus.
It'd be nice to imagine that broader, fluffier, more forward-thinking interests were being considered as well, but I haven't seen any sign of that so far.
I do think a lot of people in Europe and elsewhere are misinterpreting the anger in the UK at the moment. No, the EU isn't evil or malicious; it's acting perfectly rationally according to its interests as it sees them, and those interests make perfect sense in a realist view of IR. It found itself pushing on an open door with Theresa May and it'd be wholly unrealistic to expect it to stop pushing out of some weird sense of fair play. The anger is about the EU, but it's mostly not directed at the EU; it's directed at the UK political establishment.
positive wording -> negative wording
Keep 4 core principles of the single market as written in the "constitution"? -> EU is strong arming the UK and trying to punish it in negotiations and is not willing to even give small concessions.
UK is part of the EU until Brexit negotiations have been concluded -> EU has the upper hand in negotiations.
EU wants to avoid a hard border and the potential societal unrest at all costs with the backstop -> EU is trying to tie the UK into the customs union indefinitely with the backstop. / The EU is trying to impose a border between northern Ireland and the mainland.
I mean seriously what did you expect? Negotiating the constitution of a country or political union isn't realistic at all. It was never going to happen unless the other party wants to voluntarily self destruct itself. Do you think Russia could renegotiate the abolishment of human rights in the US to arrest political enemies abroad? Because that's just as silly.
Heck I've also read this gem recently (paraphrased):
Copyright directive passed with significantly more than 70% of the countries voting in favor -> The EU is threatening the sovereignty of member states by passing laws to countries that have voted against them.
The problem with the EU in this case isn't the democratic process. It's the fact that countries voted in favor of it at all.
I'm not sure who you're arguing with here, but I don't think it's me. The word "evil" only appears once in my comment, immediately preceded by the word "isn't".
The EU is actually not that interested in keeping the backstop indefinitely because it sees the risk that NY will be used by UK companies as a backdoor to the single market.
Simultaneously, many people seem to have a problem with it being UK-wide, and would be absolutely fine with it being NI-only.
Other people have a problem with both options, and yet seem to think it’s incapable of being a problem because everyone agrees a hard border would be a problem.
I really hope I’m accidentally straw-manning that last group, it would be really bad if my perception is correct.
Of course the EU is going to push for every inch, and since they don’t even want Brexit that gives them a lot of power. That was (or should have been) obvious from the get-go.
The EU wants legal certainty and had committed to protect the good Friday agreement. That's why there is a backstop. Talk to anyone in Ireland and they are convinced that violence will break out the moment the border is back up. That's why there is a backstop. Look at what UK politicians publicly say about how they will act - that's why it's enshrined in the withdrawal agreement - to make clear that the UK doesn't hold the rest of the EU hostage.
Within those who favor Leave, no-deal may be what the majority want. That isn't the majority of the country, though. If you said that May's deal and no deal were the only two flavors of Leave available, then I think it would come down to 48% Remain (using the figure from the previous vote), at most 35% for no-deal, and at least 17% for May's deal. Even if the exact numbers are off, there's no way that no-deal has so much support among leavers that it has more total support than remain.
Worse, of those who support something like May's deal, some would prefer remaining to a no-deal exit. So it's unclear, if the only options on the table are specifically a no-deal exit and remaining, that a no-deal exit is what the people want.
That's of the voters. In Parliament... who knows.
Theresa May is so tone-deaf she’s made 80-90% of voters think she’s on the opposite team to themselves, where half of the population think that means “Remainer” and half think it means “Leaver”.
Unfortunately, that 10-20% support for her deal means that literally no option has majority support.
No-deal and Remain both independently beat May’s deal in a direct competition.
If you put the question “do you want no deal?” to the population, almost all the supporters of May’d deal say “no”, but if you put the question “do you want to cancel Brexit and remain?” to the population, almost all the supporters of May’d deal say “no”.
If you make it a normal three-way referendum, I’ve seen Leavers complain that would split the vote.
If you make it a three-way vote with single-transferable-vote, you end up with a real-life version of Arrow’s impossibly Theorem, where voter preferences are non-transitive.
I mean, perhaps there’s someone who wants it so much they’re fine tearing up the residency and employment rights of 10% of the workforce while simultaneously messing up most import and export oriented businesses — tourist, service, industrial, and fishing/agriculture — and that having no further access to medical radioisotopes is a small price to pay for leaving Euratom, and who think it’s great (or at the very least ‘fine’) that the UK has already not only lost 10% of the value of the currency but also had a capital flight of approximately 20% of non-land assets…
But I think most of them hear stuff like that and say “project fear”.
May doesn't want to call it a customs union, because her 2017 manifesto committed to leaving the Customs Union, but that's absolutely what it amounts to. I don't know whether Labour really want it, or even understand what it entails; I suspect they mostly wanted a point of disagreement with the government.
1. May is not and has never been a Brexiter. I honestly can't understand how anyone still thinks she is.
2. If by "hard-line Tory Brexiters" you mean the ERG, they absolutely hate the WA, largely because it ends in a customs union. If you know of an exception, I'd be interested to hear who it is.
3. The "cakeism"/"cherry-picking" thing is almost entirely May. The voting public was told before the referendum that Leave meant leaving the Single Market and Customs Union completely. May's manifesto at the 2017 election said the same. Insofar as there was a mandate, that was it. She had absolutely NO mandate for suddenly pulling out that weird Chequers monstrosity; nobody ever wanted it except her and Olly Robbins. Your "hard-line Tory Brexiters" (and a lot of the softer ones) almost universally want a WTO exit at this point, with no special treatment, because May has wrecked any chance of getting anything better.
3. Except for anyone who heard or saw:
“Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the Single Market” - Daniel Hannan MEP
“Only a madman would actually leave the Market” - Owen Paterson MP, Vote Leave backer
And anyone who knows that Norway is in the single market who heard:
“Wouldn't it be terrible if we were really like Norway and Switzerland? Really? They're rich. They're happy. They're self-governing” - Nigel Farage
“The Norwegian option, the EEA option, I think that it might be initally attractive for some business people” - Matthew Elliot, Vote Leave chief executive
“Increasingly, the Norway option looks the best for the UK” - Arron Banks, Leave.EU founder
2) I thought that was pretty much what I'm saying. ERG types dislike May's plan because it has no legally binding guarantee for when the Backstop would end. That's probably a good thing on giving ample time to thread the needle (which may be impossible) on a compromise that won't spike the Good Friday Accord and start folks trying to blow up cake all over again. In this case, cake is people, cars, and buildings.
3. Yes. Cake, as I said, is fantastic. Here though, there's no majority in favor of any particular flavor, and most people are perfectly satisfied to deny cake to everyone that doesn't want their flavor. It's become sort of a "I'll have my cake and eat yours too" situation. I'm not sure the metaphor matches all that well at this point, but I really want some cake right now so I'm sticking to it.
The other option is revoking Article 50, either openly or disguised as a second referendum with no Leave option. Neither would particularly surprise me at this point.
ETA: I still wouldn't rule out some form of the WA passing, though. Everyone in Westminster is in blind reactive panic mode now; it's not exactly conducive to good decisions.
Instead, the referendum should have a Leave option - a specific Leave option. Not an amorphous, everyone-can-think-it's-whatever-they-want option, but a concrete, well-defined, specific option. That option would almost certainly lose, since all the Remain people would vote against it, and so would many of the people who want some other flavor of Leave.
The problem is that there are several different flavors of Leave: There's hard Brexit, and the customs union, and May's deal, and maybe one or two others. None of them has a majority, either in Parliament or among the voters. But I'm not sure that Remain has a majority, either (it didn't in the referendum, and at least in Parliament, there's a feeling that remaining in the end will be regarded as a betrayal of the referendum).
Then there's the problem that May seems to feel that the most urgent task at the moment is not cleaning up this mess, but rather keeping Corbyn out of the PM position.
All this makes it almost impossible to find a way forward. However, I would say that May's deal is dead, no matter how many times she keeps trying to bring it up for a vote in Parliament. And Parliament seems to be indicating that it will take the reins out of May's hands rather than permitting her to run them (willingly or not) into a hard Brexit. The EU seems to be against the idea of perpetual delay (though it remains to be seen if they will blink when push comes to shove). That leaves revoking Article 50 or a customs union as the only options available (unless the EU blinks and keeps blinking, or unless Parliament is willing to let May do a hard Brexit).
Or so it seems to me. In this mess of a situation, who knows whether I'm right...
Maybe a solid kicking in the May elections (EU and local) will concentrate minds a bit, but I'm not hopeful. I can easily see both main parties disintegrating soon, at which point we're really off to the races.
Now, you could be right that either May (or her successor) would never be floated as an option. Or it could be that it is not possible to get an agreement on those parameters (CU minus the rest of the WA) with the EU. Both those could be perfectly valid reasons this would never fly. I was just trying to list the possibilities, and rule out the ones that looked to me like they were dead.
> I can easily see both main parties disintegrating soon
Parties can disintegrate when they aren't well aligned with what becomes the dominant issue of the day. This looks to me exactly like what's happening in the UK, especially with the Tories. But maybe new parties that actually correspond to positions on Brexit would be better than the incredible muddle that currently exists...
Maybe on Brexit. But Scotland's recent experience suggests that single-issue independence parties do a terrible job of governing.
Is irrelevant, even if you had described it accurately, because it's clearly never going to pass Parliament.
It used to not extradite its citizens at all, but that was loosened so extradition to EU countries and international courts is possible.
Furthermore there are limitations, I think these apply fairly generally:
- the alleged crime must be a crime in both jurisdictions
- no death penalty
- no torture
- a fair trial must be ensured
- unusually harsh punishments would also be a blocker
Under US instruction Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the founder of Huawei and a high ranking executive of the company herself. Following this event John McCallum, Canada's ambassador to China, stated that Meng Wanzhou had a strong argument against extradition for reasons including political interference from Donald Trump, the extraterritorial nature of the charges and the fact that Canada is not party to American sanctions against Iran. For context one one of those points, Trump himself has publicly stated he'd be happy to "intervene" in the case in exchange for a favorable trade deal from China.
Following internal pressure John McCallum released a message stating, "I regret that my comments with respect to the legal proceedings of Ms Meng have created confusion. I misspoke. These comments do not accurately represent my position on the issue. As the government has consistently made clear, there has been no political involvement in this process.". He was then fired by Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau.
This does not speak to whether the charges are legitimate or not, but rather that people involved in cases like this are often in positions of immense pressure that undermines the entire system. McCallum had a 20 year political career. It's likely that his firing has now come with an implicit political black listing as well, ending that career. Such can be the cost of honesty in such cases.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/26/john-mccallum-...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/i-misspoke-can...
It's the difference between a journalist interviewing a burglar, and a journalist offering to hold the prybar, while the burglar is at work.
His supporters are currently going through the most amazing calisthenics to justify that behaviour.
Don't the ends justify the means, especially if far greater crimes are revealed as a result?
Don't worry, the US now just has to wait until Halloween.
From [1, page 6, 25]: "Effective enforcement of Union law requires that protection is granted to the broadest possible range of categories of persons, who, irrespective of whether they are EU citizens or third-country nationals, by virtue of work-related activities (irrespective of the nature of these activities,whether they are paid or not), have privileged access to information about breaches that would be in the public’s interest to report and who may suffer retaliation if they report them."
So there's some form of protection for non-eu citizens, but I have no idea how far it goes or how the rules will be interpreted in those cases.
[1] www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_institutions/commission_europeenne/com/2018/0218/COM_COM(2018)0218_EN.pdf
[0] - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-8-2018-0398-...
But I really want to see it as a political fail-safe against multinational corporations.
Shouldnt public disclosure be the first thing which is protected?
Largely, this depends on your perspective of whether or not the entity (or government body) should be allowed to make a good-faith effort to rememdy/rectify/fix the egregious behaviour before you go running to the media. It's the same principle behind CVD (Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure).