German Pirate Party Sets Course For European Parliament
Written by Ben Jones on May 22, 2009The European elections are only two weeks away, and Pirate Party candidates vie for seats in different countries. We speak with some of them, starting with Andreas Popp, lead candidate for the German Piraten Partei.
The German Pirate Party (or Piratenpartei) is often overshadowed by the success and popularity of their Swedish brethren. Recently they were even removed and banned from a major German social networking site. They shouldn’t be discounted though, as they have every bit as much grit and determination as their Nordic associates, as one of their adverts for their European Election campaign shows.
TorrentFreak spoke with their lead candidate, Bavarian party chairman Andreas Popp, to discuss his views on the upcoming election.
What do you see as being the most important issue in the election?
Currently the most important issue in EU (but also national) politics are the civil rights. This includes the fight against the censorship of the Internet as well as against the transformation of our western societies into police states. IT, especially the Internet, plays a very important role in these topics. The politicians who are in power right now fear the Internet and are doing everything to get control over it, just like the content industry does. What makes these topics so important is the immediate danger we are facing. If we do not fight for our civil liberties now, we might just find ourselves in a new form of dictatorship.
What is your opinion of Commissioner McCreevy’s attempts to extend copyright terms in the EU?
This extension really was some kind of a joke. They said they wanted to enhance the financial situation of retired musicians. This is already strange, since while other people have to save money for their retirement, musicians get their pension for free by copyright. But then all the experts stated that musicians will not benefit from this extension, because they normally sell all their rights in buy-out-contracts. So only music labels benefit from the law. They passed it anyways.
What about copyright in general?
I think it would take too long to explain what needs to be changed here, but you can read about it on the program (english) page of our campaign site.
How many members does the German Pirate Party have right now, and has there been any boost from the Pirate Bay trial, as the Swedish party has seen?
Nationally, we just had our 1000th member. Yes, we have had a great boost during the last few weeks, but I cannot tell you if it is because of the Pirate Bay trial or because of the new censorship law.
Are you seeing the ‘older generations’ supporting the party in significant numbers, or is it mainly 18-30 year-olds?
Of course the generation of the “Digital Natives” are the main supporting group for the Pirate Party. But there are also a lot of people who are already out of their thirties and are supporting our activities. Even if you look at our list of candidates there are only three people who have not passed thirty yet. So I would say yes, there is a significant number of ‘older’ people supporting the pirates. I think the only difference is the medium we use to communicate. You can get in touch with the younger ones mostly through the net. The older ones are more likely to come and talk to you when you are standing on the street.
What is the method of election in Germany for the European Parliament?
It is basically the same as in our national elections. Each party nominates a list of candidates for the election and the citizens can put their cross next to one of the party. Germany has 99 seats in the EU parliament. These seats are divided proportionally among all parties with more than 5% of the total votes.
5% would be roughly how many votes?
There are about 60 million voters, but Germans are not really interested in EU elections so only about 50% of them are going to vote. So that might be round about 1.5 million votes to break the 5%-line. 50% is rather low compared to national or local elections, but the turnout is falling. People here get kind of annoyed with politics. The 60 million figure is about 10 years old, but there is a small difference to the national elections because citizens of other EU countries can register for voting in the EU elections in Germany too. It is a fair number to base things on though.
Some say you have little chance of making that 5% barrier, so why should people vote for you?
One of the most important chances in the EU elections is to get enough votes (0.5%) to qualify for public party funding. That is one of the things I like to tell all the people out there who do not want to vote for us, because they think we cannot make the 5% threshold. Even if we do not, qualifying for public funding would be a big step. One of the parties who gets public funding and is about the same size as we are, got around 80,000 Euro (about $108,000) last year – that would mean more than tripling our funds – and making it it possible to hire people for the administrative tasks, giving us more time for politics.
How much of an issue is funding in German elections?
It is a big issue. As a small party we do not get any public funding yet, so we have to get along with the money we get from our membership fees and donations. All of us are working unsalaried right now. Considering the organizational stuff that has to be done, we are limited in activity. If people want to make a donation, they can do so either to the national party, or directly to their state party. And if they cannot afford to donate money, voluntary helpers to do local work are always a big help.
The European elections take place in early June. The Germany party has a campaign website, www.piratenpartei.net
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35 Responses
Save your Life, vote “Piratenpartei”!
:)
Good article, just linked it on one of the biggest german computer-realted community.
\o
What I don’t like with this German pirate party is that, unlike the Swedish, they seem to take a position on all political subjects, not just civil rights, instead of remaining neutral there.
agree with 4, they are much more politically motivated than their Swedish counterparts.
Politics is the battleground ;) Obviously the movie and music industy have known that for some time now, hence why copyright have become so twisted and unjust.
“1000th member”
Cause that’s important.
You cant actually get many supporters without taking a stance regarding political subjects.
That’s it in Germany, you need positions on other topics or no one cares.
By the way, the last link in the text is broken, lacks “http://”
“citizens of other EU countries can register for voting in the EU elections in Germany too.”
How can one know more about this? How can one do this? I’m from Portugal and we still don’t have a full fledged pirate party and this sounds a good way to help.
Also, is this only true for Germany or for all Countries in the union?
to #4
the Swedish pirate party is accused of not knowing enough about broader political issues, now you say the German pirate party has a broad political agenda, just what according to you would be the sweet spot for a political party’s involvement in politics ?….
@B0rg
I “think” its the same for every EU country, you can vote for any party you want in any country aslong as your a EU citizen?
I may be wrong though, im a first timer myself ;) hehe
As a EU national you can vote in any country whose nationality you have or the country you are permanently residing in. You cannot vote in a country where you don’t live and don’t have its nationality.
You need to get active and try to found your own party – the existing ones will happily give you as much help as they can.
Quote:
So I would say yes, there is a significant number of ‘older’ people supporting the pirates.
Reply: u got that right, all my friends that support pirates are between 35 and 75 years of age
In Italy vote for our pirate pary
http://www.partito-pirata.it/
Alessandro Bottoni
http://www.alessandrobottoni.it/
;)
UK needs a party like this. We just have all the jumped up monkeys who follow the herd and take our money for themselves.
@14
We’r starting to work on it.
Ya, you’r right, just found it on europal: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/2_4_0_en.htm
It just seemed from the text at first glance that it was something more than that. Oh well…
??????? ? ????????. ?????? ???? ?????? ??????!
well, this is exactly whats going to have to happen, hopefully we can break down the censorship other places faster than we can build our own. this could provide a world-wide momentum – otherwise it will be up to the hackers to save us.
Considering what PP fights against. And considering what it would mean to pretty much every geek and hacker out there if certain laws, already in the pipeline, gets through, one would’ve guessed that at least in Germany, home of the genius dudes and dudettes’ in CCC, they would’ve garnered more support.
But if they wanna get screwed over twice, the wrong way, it’s of course their choice.
Hes right about the police state stuff and I have to hand it to him for speaking out against the gobal elite! If i was in Germany I would totally become a member just for that alone!
@16
http://www.pp-international.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=16
the home of the UK pirate party. Every party out there started small once.
“…So only music labels benefit from the law. They passed it anyways.”
Hohoho, more laws that give free money to the music labels in addition to censorship laws.
If this keeps up, I think its time to pull out the guillotines. ;]
It’s about enabling these folks to continue.
Vote vote vote!
Leute, geht WÄHLEN! Und wählt PIRATEN!
Blah, you people are wasting your time … we’ll just buy your representatives like we buy judges, officials and everyone else … you silly kids don’t have our billions and we aren’t going to sit on our bloated butts and allow you to take our criminal enterprise away … in case you children haven’t heard, money talks … All Your Politicians Are Belong To Us.
Regards,
“Unbiased” Judge Tomas Norström
The most difficult obstacle for the Piratenpartei in my experience is the fact that people consider a vote for a sub-5%-party “thrown away”. This goes as far as many suggested changing the election law to allow voting for a second party – in case the first party doesnt get into the parliament.
This shows that many people dont exactly vote for the party they feel represented by the best, but they tend to vote for _winners_. Why this is so I dont know, but because of it, it is crucial for anybody helping the election campaign to explain potential voters that a vote for the Piratenpartei in not “thrown away” in (the probable) case they dont enter the German parliament.
Every frigging vote helps. Every single one. It helps us get future funding, it motivates us more to keep investing our time, it helps the Piratenpartei to get noticed by mainstream media and by future voters we didnt reach this time. The bigger we get, the easier it will be for future voters to consider voting for us.
We really fight for every single vote and for every single election signature. Since this works only once every 4 years, if you have any friend or relative who otherwise never votes, get him to get out and vote for us or something. Help us to make now as big an impact as possible, because who knows how everything will look like 4 years down the road.
“Nationally, we just had our 1000th member. ”
lol
How is this even news-worthy?
lol. Now im starting to understand how piracy rationalizes itself. They call it “internet censorship” as if by not letting people selfishly steal other people’s work is somehow covering up some dirty secret.
No, neostyles, you don’t undestand it. The German government is pushing for censorship laws, that’s what it’s all about. By the way, how about you people who claim that pirates only want to steal, why don’t you go and read something from Prof. Lessig or so, you know, to really understand pirates?
No election has ever changed anything for good, creating another shitty useless party will never ever change anything, just look at the green parties or the socialist parties: they didn’t change anything they just grab the high-paid political seats and now both green & socialist (laborist if you prefer) parties have the same lack of ideology as the right-wing parties: worse than nazi capitalism, w(h)orship of chinese low-cost enslavement
looking for
space to arrange a
Party a?
Hello, I am a faggot
LOL
=)
Whoever did that, that’s real mature of you. Real mature.
Anyhow, it’s odd that they’de choose to go with that name because calling themselves “the Pirate Party” is basically declaring their own illegitimacy and their intention to neglect the law.
Election are important and even if you vote for the losing side it still sends a message. Money and politics go hand in hand, they need money to get elected and have to do favors in return to keep getting the money they need. Unless the people are willing to standup and vote for good people then democatic is just for the rich and the poor get poorer. Capitalism/democatic is a great but it can be worse than other forms of goverment if the people don’t standup and vote for what is right and fair.
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