Pirate Parties International

Pirate Parties International (PPI) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Formed in 2010, it serves as a worldwide organization for Pirate Parties, currently representing 39 members from 36 countries across Europe, Americas, Asia, Africa and Australasia. The Pirate Parties are political incarnations of the freedom of expression movement, trying to achieve their goals by the means of the established political system rather than just through activism. In 2017 PPI had been granted special consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Aims.
The PPI statutes give its purposes as:"to help establish, to support and promote, and to maintain communication and co-operation between pirate parties around the world."The PPI advocate on the international level for the promotion of the goals its Members share such as protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the digital age, consumer and authors rights-oriented reform of copyright and related rights, support of information privacy, transparency, and free access to information.
The name "Pirates" itself is a reappropriation of the title that was given to internet users by the representatives of the music and film industry and does not refer to any illegal activity.
History.
The first Pirate Party was the Swedish Piratpartiet, founded on 1 January 2006.
Other parties and groups were formed in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. In 2007, representatives of these parties met in Vienna, Austria to form an alliance and plan for the 2009 European Parliament elections. Further conferences were held in 2008 in Berlin and Uppsala, the latter leading to the "Uppsala Declaration" of a basic platform for the elections.
In September 2008, Andrew Norton (United States) was appointed as coordinator of the PPI collective. In August 2009 he stepped down and passed the function of coordinator over to the "core-team" led by Pat Mächler and Samir Allioui.
In 2009, the original Pirate Party won 7.1% of the vote
in Sweden's European Parliament elections and won two of Sweden's twenty MEP seats, inspired by a surge in membership following the trial and conviction of three members of the ideologically aligned Pirate Bay a year earlier.
On 18 April 2010, the Pirate Parties International was formally founded in Brussels at the PPI Conference from April 16 to 18.
Uppsala Declaration.
At the 2009 conference of Pirate Parties International in Uppsala (Sweden), European Pirate parties agreed on a common declaration of the parties' goals for the upcoming election of the European Parliament.
Central issues of the declaration are:
Prague Declaration.
At the conference of Pirate Parties International in Prague (Czech Republic) in 2012, European Pirate parties agreed to run in the elections to the European Parliament in the year 2014 with a common program as well as establish a European political party (European Pirate Party, PPEU). The declaration has been followed by conferences in Potsdam and Barcelona to work on the structure of the legal body to come and the statutes for it.
Member Parties.
As of 1 January 2021, PPI has the following 40 ordinary members with the voting power of 37 (parties sharing territory split the vote among themselves):
Resignations.
In February 2015, Pirate Party Australia resigned from PPI due to serious disagreement with the direction and management of the organization. In the same month, Pirate Party UK also resigned and in March the Belgian Pirate Party suspended its membership within PPI.
On 20 April 2015, the Pirate Party of Iceland voted overwhelmingly to leave PPI. A member of the executive, Arnaldur Sigurðarson, reported a 96.56% vote in favor of leaving, adding: “PPI has been pretty much useless when it comes to its objectives which should be to encourage international cooperation between Pirate Parties.”
In May 2015, the Pirate Party of Sweden resolved with a significant majority to leave PPI, canceling their observer status.
In July 2016, the Pirate Party of Canada officially withdrew from Pirate Parties International citing ongoing troubles with the organization as well as a failure to adequately provide any accomplishments over its history.
Structure.
The PPI is governed by a board, formerly led by two co-chairs, and since the Warsaw conference of 2015 by a chair and a vice-chair. Policy, governance, and applications for membership are the responsibility of the PPI General Assembly which must convene at least once per year. By the current rules, board members are elected for a two-year term, half of the board being elected every year. Since the 2019 General Assembly, the Board has 9 members (previously 7). General Secretary and Treasurer positions are filled by the board by its members.
All board meetings are recorded and the minutes are published here: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Board/Board_Meetings.
PPI Conferences.
All conferences are recorded and the minutes are published here: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_General_Assembly.
Pirate Party movement worldwide.
See Pirate Party and List of Pirate Parties for an overview of all Pirate Parties around the world.