According to the representatives from Media Development Center and Center for the Study of Democracy in Bulgaria the situation is concerning. As an EU member state, Bulgaria had a direct obligation to pass the whistleblower law. However, the newly passed legislation was rushed  and civil society was concerned about lack of substantial protection to whistleblowers.

In Croatia, representatives from civil society were more concerned about the implementation of the law. Adrijana Crvtila, whistleblower in Croatia and representative of Pomak Association shared her experience with her report on corruption and retaliation that followed afterwards and exposed some of the problems within the Croatian whistleblower law.

The Romanian case, on the other hand, raises concerns about awareness on the whistleblower law.  Representative from Romanian Academic Society described the process in courts in cases of whistleblowers who lost their jobs and their lawyers did not even evoke the law on whistleblower rights because it was considered insufficient and turned instead to the Labor law. Regarding the EU Whistleblower Directive, there have been improvements to the drafting of the law and transposition into national legislation. However, the burden of proof to the whistleblower remains unresolved.

The Czech Republic, on the other hand, does not have a whistleblower law yet, although a first reading took place in Parliament. The representative from FaceUp stressed the importance of widening the scope to grant protection also on cases reporting bullying or sexual harassment in the workplace.

Representative from Transparency International Greece stressed that the main problem with the law in Greece is the implementation. However, a delicate point is that concerning security and whistleblowing under activities that could potentially harm a country’s reputation or national security, which could put whistleblowers into a very difficult position and increase the costs of whistleblowing in areas of security.

Finally, Slovakia is a country that already has a solid legal framework and whistleblower protection authority. However, the representative from Transparency International Slovakia stresses the need to work more in the direction of building trust in institutions.

Some progress is also visible in countries that do not have a direct obligation to transpose the EU Whistleblower Directive at the moment. However, the European membership perspective in candidate countries in Western Balkans means that these countries will eventually have to harmonize their laws with those at the EU level. An update from representative from North Macedonia stressed the work of the Ministry of Justice, which, after constant pressure from civil society, set November 2023 as the date for the alignment of this legislation with the EU law.