The WAKE UP task enters the phase of hard work. On board the plane to Bucharest, in the cloudy, Warsaw morning 06.10.2025 were passing memories of the process which led to this moment. And you gotta admit, there's been quite a few signaling going on over the last year.
A twelve months ago, the engagement of the civilian Affairs Institute in this global task seemed highly unrealistic. The Polish government fought against time to adopt rules relating to the protection of whistleblowers (persons reporting violations of the law) as shortly as possible and to block the multi-million-dollar penalties that the European Union institutions began to impose on our country. The civilian Affairs Institute was very active at the legislative phase of the bill. We besides worked on a plan proposal.
Who and what will the WAKE UP task stimulate?
Knowledge of signallers, and of mechanisms forming part of the national legal order of the consortium states, will be disseminated as part of the project, implemented by the Institute of civilian Affairs from 1 August 2025, both through a training cycle, information material and a comparative report, which will indicate good practices and legal issues that request further improvement.
At the end of the two-year project, the results achieved under WAKE UP will be summarised during the final conference which we will organise in Poland. Our country, the last associate State to adopt the EU Signallers Directive. The rules have been in force for a year.
The Ministry of the household of Labour and Social Policy indicated at the phase of the work on the draft law that, 2 years after the entry into force of the regulations, the Act would again be subject to the alleged Impact Assessment. The results of the WAKE UP task can be very helpful.
Project consortium gathering in Bucharest
W Bucharest met us for the first time live to discuss a further action plan.
WAKE UP (Whistleblower Advocate for Knowledge, Empowerment, Unity, and Protection)
The main axis will be to make a comparative survey in which we will analyse national government establishing mechanisms for the protection of signallers.
We will besides examine how they correspond to the provisions of the EU Directive (Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council (EU) 2019/1937).
The study will be instrumental in creating training programmes for possible signallers, involving civilian society organisations, trade unions and public sector institutions.
A consortium consisting of:
- Romania (CRPE),
- Italy (University of Turin and AMAPOLA),
- Latvia (Transparency global Latvia),
- Estonia (Transparency global Estonia),
- Poland (Institute for civilian Affairs)
within the framework of the task activities, it will disseminate information and cognition on whistleblowers, called signallers.
In the capital of Romania, we discussed the methodology of conducting investigation in the task and the process of collecting data, taking into account the legislative characteristics of individual countries – members of the consortium. We have met each another and exchanged experiences about the perception of signalers in our countries.
The action plan for the coming months has been set. Now all we gotta do is work hard.
