Whistleblowers are a cornerstone in our society, and a necessity for a functioning economy. Their contributions are often lonely ones. Through their courage to expose the worst forms of corruption, systemic risks and outright frauds, they often end up in trouble for doing what’s right. Without them, society is a place without excellence, and so is the market. When this excellence is discouraged, the abovementioned problems grow in size, and levels of extremism rise, resulting in a positive feedback loop for serionegative problems. Recently, in 2019, the EU has introduced Directive 2019/1937, an ambitious step towards better safeguards for whistleblowers. Paperwork aside, there are several cases of whistleblowers to whom this Directive has clearly not applied (yet). When I was at the Brussels Economic Forum, I carefully raised this issue within the available time. The silence was - unfortunately - deafening.

This kind of hatred is a rather invisible one. The denial, neglect, and repression - besides a form of hatred in itself - fuels all sorts of other social dissatisfactions and leaves major problems unsolved. It is also a market failure. Counterfactually, industries can isolate and solve problems more easily when bottom-up action is taken quickly. Regulatory burdens will also be reduced as less bureaucracy is needed to combat fraud. And finally, our societies will be more competitive and respectful. Let's solve this serious problem!