Parliament passes the whistleblower law, required by the EC on PNRR

The Chamber of Deputies adopted, on Tuesday, amendments to the whistleblower law, as requested by the European Commission, in order to unlock payment request number 2 from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). The bill goes to promulgation, to the President Klaus Iohannis.

In the new form, only one word was removed – “substantial”, from the phrase “substantial indications of violations of the law”. It is about the provision contested by several NGOs, who warned that it limits the possibility of resolving reports.

“With the exception of the provisions of paragraph 1, reporting that does not include the name, surname, contact details or signature of the whistleblower in the public interest is examined and resolved to the extent that it contains indications of violations of the law”, the legislative proposal states.

The Chamber of Deputies is the decision-making forum in this case, the bill goes to promulgation. The Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers in the Public Interest was adopted last year, being published in the Official Gazette on December 19, under the conditions in which Romania, as a member state, had to transpose Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the Parliament into national legislation European of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report violations of Union law.

The transposition of the directive is a milestone for Romania in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, failure to comply with it may lead to the loss of a tranche of 3 billion euros. The European Commission, however, requested the amendment of the law.