Pirate Parties International
Pirate Parties International is a not-for-profit international non-governmental organisation with its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Formed in 2010, it serves as a worldwide organisation for Pirate Parties, currently representing members from 42 countries. 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 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 was appointed as coordinator of the PPI collective. In August 2009 he stepped down and passed the function of coordinator over to the "coreteam" 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.
The Uppsala Declaration
At the 2009 conference of Pirate Parties International in Uppsala, 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:
- 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 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.
The Prague Declaration
Resignations
In February 2015, Pirate Party Australia resigned from PPI due to serious disagreement with the direction and management of the organisation. 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 favour 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, cancelling 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 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.| Year | Co-Chairs | General Secretary | Treasurer | Member of the board | Alternates |
| 2010/2011 |  Grégory Engels, Jerry Weyer | Joachim Mönch |  Nicolas Sahlqvist |  Aleksandar Blagojevic, Jakub Michálek, Bogomil Shopov | – |
| 2011/2012 |  Samir Allioui, Marcel Kolaja |  Lola Voronina |  Pat Mächler |  Finlay Archibald,  Paul da Silva, Thomas Gaul | – |
| 2012/2013 | Grégory Engels, Lola Voronina |  Travis McCrea | Ed Geraghty |  Nuno Cardoso, Jelena Jovanović, Denis Simonet |  Brendan Molloy, Thomas Gaul, Alessandra Minoni, Andrew Norton |
| 2013/2014 | Grégory Engels, Vojtěch Pikal | Thomas Gaul | Marc Tholl | Nuno Cardoso, Azat Gabrakhmanov, Denis Simonet | Jelena Jovanović, Paul Bossu, Radosław Pietroń, Yasin Aydin |
| 2014/2015 |  Maša Čorak, Koen de Voegt | Thomas Gaul | Sebastian Krone | Grégory Engels, Anders Kleppe, Stathis Leivaditis | Marco Confalonieri, Yasin Aidin, Min Chiaki, Chemseddine Ben Jemaa |
| July 2015 – July 2016 |  Andrew Reitemeyer Patrick Schiffer |  Henrique Peer |  Karla Medrano | Min Chiaki, Chemseddine Ben Jemaa, Dr. Richard Hill, | Anders Kleppe, Nikolay Voronov, Koen De Voegt, Grégory Engels |
| July 2016 – November 2017 | Guillaume Saouli Bailey Lamon | Thomas Gaul |  Keith L. Goldstein | Andrew Reitemeyer, Raymond Johansen, Koen De Voegt | Nikolay Voronov, Patrick Schiffer, Adam Wolf, Grégory Engels |
| December 2017 – November 2018 | Guillaume Saouli Bailey Lamon | Keith L. Goldstein | Thomas Gaul | Koen De Voegt, Raymond Johansen, Nikolay Voronov | Adam Wolf, Etienne Evellin, Daniel Dantas Prazeres, Grégory Engels |
| November 2018 – December 2019 | Guillaume Saouli Bailey Lamon | Keith L. Goldstein | Michal Gill | Etienne Evellin, Raymond Johansen, Ladislav Koubek | Daniel Dantas Prazeres, Grégory Engels, Kitty Hundal, Cédric Levieux |
| since December 2019 | Bailey Lamon Grégory Engels | Keith L. Goldstein | Daniel Dantas Prazeres | Cédric Levieux, Thomas Gaul, Michal Gill, Linda B. Tørkle, Giuseppe Calandra | Sebastian Krone, Carlos Polo, Svein Mork Dahl, Cristina Diana Bargu |