Abstract
Whistleblowing is protected because it serves the public interest. In some regulations on whistleblowing protection such as the British Public Interest Disclosure Act, as well as the case law of European Court of Human Rights see the public interest, among others, as a condition for the protection of whistleblowers. The European Whistleblowing Directive does not require explicitly that information given by a whistleblower should be in public interest. A whistleblower is protected, if the information relates to one of the matters regulated by Article 2 of the Directive, among other protection requirements foreseen by Article 6 of the Directive. If the information, however, is not covered by Article 2 of the Directive, a reasonable belief of whistleblower that the information is in the public interest is to be questioned by courts in charge. In that context, it must be clear what a public interest in terms of whistleblowing is, and how it can be differentiated from personal interests. Otherwise, the legal whistleblowing protection, which is supposed to protect public interests, might be invoked for an opportunistic use, namely for creating an artificial protection against purely employment related disadvantages.