Pirate Parties International

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Pirate Parties International

Abbreviation	PPI
Formation	18 April 2010 (2010-04-18)
Type	International nongovernmental organisation
Legal status	Association
Purpose	Political
Headquarters	Brussels, Belgium
Membership	Pirate parties and affiliated associations
Chairperson	Grégory Engels
Vice-Chairperson	Keith L. Goldstein
General Secretary	TBD
Treasurer	TBD
Main organ	General Assembly
Website	www.pp-international.net

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Pirate Parties International (PPI) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.^[1] Formed in 2010, it serves as a worldwide organization for Pirate Parties, currently representing 39 members from 36 countries across Europe, the 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.^[2]

The PPI statutes^[3] 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.

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.^[4] Further conferences were held in 2008 in Berlin and Uppsala, the latter leading to the "Uppsala Declaration" of a basic platform for the elections.^[5]

In 2009, the original Pirate Party won 7.1% of the vote^[6] 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.^[7]

On 18 April 2010, the Pirate Parties International was formally founded in Brussels at the PPI Conference from April 16 to 18.^[1]

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.^[8][9] Central issues of the declaration are:

• reform of copyright, exemption of non-commercial activity from copyright regulation, reduction of the duration of copyright protections; banning of DRM technologies, opposition to media or hardware levies;
• reform of patent law, particularly stating that patents on life (including patents on seeds and genes) and software should not be allowed;
• strengthening civil rights, transparent government, speedy and fair trial, freedom of speech, and expansion of the right to anonymity in communication.

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^[10] 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.

As of July 2 2022, PPI has the following 31^[11] Ordinary members with the voting power of 28 (parties sharing territory split the vote among themselves):

1. Pirate Party of Tunisia

1. Pirate Party of New Zealand (1/2 vote; vote shared with IP New Zealand)
2. Internet Party New Zealand (1/2 vote; vote shared with PP New Zealand)

1. Pirate Party of Brazil
2. Pirate Party of Chile
3. United States Pirate Party
4. Pirate Party of Venezuela

1. Pirate Party of Belgium
2. Pirate Party of Catalonia
3. Czech Pirate Party
4. Estonian Pirate Party
5. Pirate Party of France
6. Pirate Party Germany
7. Pirate Party of Greece
8. Pirate Party of Hungary
9. Pirate Party of Israel
10. Italian Pirate Party
11. Pirate Party Luxembourg
12. Pirate Party of Netherlands
13. Pirate Party of Norway
14. Polish Pirate Party
15. Portuguese Pirate Party
16. Pirate Party of Russia
17. Pirate Party of Serbia
18. Pirate Party of Slovakia (1/2 vote; vote shared with the other Slovakia)
19. Pirate Party - Slovakia (1/2 vote; vote shared with the other Slovakia)
20. Pirate Party Switzerland
21. Pirate Party of Turkey (1/2 vote; vote shared with the other Turkey)
22. Pirate Party Turkey (1/2 vote; vote shared with the other Turkey)
23. Pirate Party of Ukraine

In February 2015, Pirate Party Australia resigned from PPI due to serious disagreement with the direction and management of the organization.^[12] In the same month, Pirate Party UK also resigned^[13] and in March the Belgian Pirate Party suspended its membership within PPI.^[14]

On 20 April 2015, the Pirate Party of Iceland voted overwhelmingly to leave PPI.^[15] 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.^[16]

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.^{[citation needed]}

In 2022, the Pirate Party of Austria withdrew from the Pirate Parties International.^[17]

In December 2023, Florie Marie resigned from her role as chairperson of the Pirate Parties International after less than one year.^[18]

The PPI is governed by a board, formerly led by two co-chairs,^[19] 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.^[20] 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.

PPI Board

No.	Term	Co-Chairs (chair & vice-chair from 2015 onwards)	General Secretary	Treasurer	Member of the board	Alternates
1st Board	IV/2010 III/2011	Grégory Engels, Jerry Weyer	Joachim Mönch	Nicolas Sahlqvist	Aleksandar Blagojevic, Jakub Michálek, Bogomil Shopov	–
2nd Board	III/2011 IV/2012	Samir Allioui, Marcel Kolaja (receded)	Lola Voronina	Pat Mächler	Finlay Archibald (receded), Paul da Silva (receded), Thomas Gaul	–
3rd Board	IV/2012 IV/2013	Grégory Engels, Lola Voronina	Travis McCrea	Ed Geraghty	Nuno Cardoso, Jelena Jovanović, Denis Simonet	Brendan Molloy, Thomas Gaul, Alessandra Minoni, Andrew Norton (receded)
4th Board	IV/2013 IV/2014	Grégory Engels, Vojtěch Pikal	Thomas Gaul	Marc Tholl	Nuno Cardoso, Azat Gabrakhmanov, Denis Simonet	Jelena Jovanović, Paul Bossu, Radosław Pietroń, Yasin Aydın
5th Board	IV/2014 VII/2015	Maša Čorak, Koen de Voegt	Thomas Gaul	Sebastian Krone	Grégory Engels, Anders Kleppe, Stathis Leivaditis	Marco Confalonieri, Yasin Aydın, Min Chiaki, Chemseddine Ben Jemaa
6th Board	VII/2015 VII/2016	Andrew Reitemeyer (chair) Patrick Schiffer (vice-chair)	Henrique Peer	Karla Medrano	Min Chiaki, Chemseddine Ben Jemaa, Dr. Richard Hill,	Anders Kleppe, Nikolay Voronov, Koen De Voegt, Grégory Engels
7th Board	VII/2016 XI/2017	Guillaume Saouli (chair) Bailey Lamon (vice-chair)	Thomas Gaul	Keith L. Goldstein	Andrew Reitemeyer, Raymond Johansen, Koen De Voegt	Nikolay Voronov, Patrick Schiffer, Adam Wolf, Grégory Engels
8th Board	XI/2017 XI/2018	Guillaume Saouli (chair) Bailey Lamon (vice-chair)	Keith L. Goldstein	Thomas Gaul	Koen De Voegt, Raymond Johansen, Nikolay Voronov	Adam Wolf, Etienne Evellin, Daniel Dantas Prazeres, Grégory Engels
9th Board	XI/2018 XII/2019	Guillaume Saouli (chair) Bailey Lamon (vice-chair)	Keith L. Goldstein	Michal Gill	Etienne Evellin, Raymond Johansen, Ladislav Koubek	Daniel Dantas Prazeres, Grégory Engels, Kitty Hundal, Cédric Levieux
10th Board	XII/2019 XII/2020	Bailey Lamon (chair) Grégory Engels (vice-chair)	Keith L. Goldstein	Daniel Dantas Prazeres	Cédric Levieux, Thomas Gaul, Michal Gill, Linda B. Tørklep, Giuseppe Calandra	Sebastian Krone, Carlos Polo, Svein Mork Dahl, Cristina Diana Bargu[21]
11th Board	XII/2020 I/2022	Bailey Lamon (chair) Grégory Engels (vice-chair)	Michal Gill	Sebastian Krone	Keith L. Goldstein, Carlos Polo, Manuel Caicedo, Dario Castane, Daniel Dantas Prazeres	Svein Mork Dahl, Thomas Gaul, Ji Yong Dijkhuis
12th Board	since I/2022	Bailey Lamon (chair) Grégory Engels (vice-chair)	Michal Gill	Sebastian Krone	Keith L. Goldstein, Carlos Polo, Manuel Caicedo, Dario Castane, Alexander Isavnin, Mauricio Vargas	Ji Yong Dijkhuis Veronika Murzynová Adam Wolf Sebastian Krone
13th Board	since I/2023	Florie Marie (chair) Grégory Engels (vice-chair)	TBD	TBD	Keith L. Goldstein Michael Toledo Bailey Lamon Michal Gill Julian Häffner Alexander Isavnin Mauricio Vargas	Mia Utz Adam Wolf Sebastian Krone Raman Ojha Carlos Polo
14th Board	since I/2024	Grégory Engels (chair) Keith L. Goldstein (vice-chair)	TBD	TBD	Bailey Lamon, Alexander Isavnin, Sebastian Krone, Owen C. Richardson, Michael Toledo, Julian Häffner, Mia Utz	Raman Ojha, Carlos Polo, Thomas Gaul

All board meetings are recorded and the minutes are published here: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Board/Board_Meetings.

^[22]

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