13 ms·

Pirate Party Wins 7.1% of Swedish Vote, Enters European Parliament

177 points by mapleoin 17y ago

joel_feather 17y ago
I think this is the greatest thing to happen in european politics in a long time. Times have changed, and this is a strong message to the establishment that things will need to change a bit regarding some laws!
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  I share the feeling of optimism, but must point out that the European Parliament is where a lot of good ideas go to die, and it has little in the way of real power. Members include representatives of parties who wan to leave Europe and other relatively fringe thinkers. So it's significant, but not momentously so.
  - Sam_Odio 17y ago
    There's a recent WSJ article on the topic that's worth a read: "Serving in Europe's Parliament Is A Cushy Job, but What's the Point? ... Pay, Perks Are Good, Powers Not So Much; Struggling to Get Voters Interested" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390393595074827.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390393595074827.html
  - mixmax 17y ago
    That's a common misconception, actually the European Union has a lot of power, and member states are obliged to align their national laws to those of the EU. From the wikipedia article on EU: "The EU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws which apply in all member states, ensuring the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. It maintains common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries, and regional development. A common currency, the euro, has been adopted by sixteen member states constituting the Eurozone. " (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union) The problem is that for the common man in the various member states EU is seen as a monolithic bureaucracy placed in a country far away. Many don't realise it's power. This is the problem that the members of parlaiment face.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      European Union =/= European Parliament. I suggest that the EU Commission and Council of Ministers, along with the European court, have more influence on the development of the EU than its Parliament; which is not to say that the European Parliament is entirely toothless. The election of a Pirate Party member to that body, while interesting, is likely to have only marginal effect.
      - mixmax 17y ago
        The parlaiment, along with the council is the highest legislative body of the union and yields a lot of power. From Wikipedia: "The European Parliament has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world." Of course, as you say, a single representative from the Pirate Party will only have marginal effect. Those are the rules of a democracy.
        anigbrowl 17y ago
        I suggest you ponder the rest of that wikipedia article, or since you live in Europe, look at its day-to-day workings for a while. As a fellow European, surely you are aware that in practice the EUP is a punching bag for national governments and widely perceived as a sideshow, which is why nations fight tooth and nail to preserve their commission representation. Given its inability to propose legislation, it is hamstrung compared to a typical national legislature, not to mention being riven by petty disputes of language nationalism and so forth. With the best of intentions, how is the new Pirate Party member going to bring about a provocative debate on the meaning of copyright and intellectual property when everything has to go through a tabling committee and debates normally impose a 1 minute time limit for speakers. Hell, I'm an ardent europhile and even I think it's politically moribund. One upside of this, though, is that I ever move back to Europe I'll consider running for a seat...I figure it ought to be relatively easy to get elected given the general public apathy that prevails around euro elections :)
        vidarh 17y ago
        I agree with you, mostly. However there is one significant effect of the election of the Pirate Part: Swedish political parties have been given a rude awakening and if the Pirate Party continues to gain they will need to face up to the fact that a lot of people want more relaxed copyright legislation, or the Pirate Party may be swept into the Swedish parliament next. (keep in mind: they were polling around 5%, and many dismissed them, claiming that their key demographic of <30's "doesn't vote" - instead they performed better than the polls indicated; that's going to scare a lot of politicians into rethinking their stance) It's also bound to make a lot of people think seriously about trying to get equivalent platforms in place in other EU countries. It's an amazing showing for a "single issue" (not really, but almost) party running in only a single, small country.
- endtime 17y ago
  Look, I dislike the DMCA as much as anyone, but I don't really think that a party founded on piracy is really a great thing to happen to European politics. At least, not in the respect you imply (that we're going to tell those recording industry fat cats they're not the boss of us!). If they can push honest and realistic discussion of the issues, however, that could have a lot of impact. We all like to laugh at the publishing industry (music, then movies, now newspapers) for being unable to keep up with the times, but just as the web has introduced post-scarity to publishing, so will nanotech destroy the goods industry, robotics destroy the services industry, and, eventually, AI destroy info work. My hope is that we can learn from what is happening now (and try to understand the success of e.g. Trent Reznor, and determine whether his model would work if not for its novelty), and be better prepared for the future. But no one is talking about it...ideally, the Pirate Party will change that, rather than just explain to old dudes why torrent indexing isn't illegal.
  - tjogin 17y ago
    The Swedish Pirate Party has a horrible name. Because its political platform is all about preserving the right to personal integrity — not piracy. Certainly, they also believe that copyright and patent law needs to fundamentally change. And certainly, preserving the right to privacy on the internet — to the same standard that it is guaranteed through other means of communications — would make it pretty much impossible to shut down piracy. But that's a side-effect, not the expressed goal of the party. I'm Swedish myself, I've studied their platform closely, and I voted for them. Not because I want free stuff — but because I feel that the EU parliament needs more people in it who are viciously opposed to the idea of destroying our basic civil liberties. Many other candidates from other parties are sympathetic to this (as opposed to their respective party platforms). But — only a vote for the Pirate Party would shake the "old parties" up sufficiently in order to make personal integrity the party platform. And I think we're going to see exactly that kind of progression in Sweden across party lines.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - endtime 17y ago
- ErrantX 17y ago
  have you seen the rest of the results? PP have done well - one cant help feeling on the back of TPB publicity. But the rest of the left parties have suffered heavy losses. We're looking at a strong conservative EU parliament as far as I can tell. I fear the PP will have little impact (I confess I am not a huge fan but they do stand for some issues I believe strongly in).
  - vidarh 17y ago
    Indeed, and when looking at Sweden in particular, the "Left party", which is the only other major party in Sweden that are as open to copyright reform as the Pirate Party, lost out heavily, more or less offsetting the Pirate Party gains. Personally I saw the results as horrible (even the BNP got seats) but the Pirate Party win was at least a little beacon of light, though I mostly see their win as a kick in the ass for the other parties that will hopefully see them starting to reform their own copyright platforms or risk losing the rest of the youth vote too.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      well I guess the hope is similar parties can get a break in other countries (hopefully, for me, w/o worrying links to TPB et all). Your right, it does validate copyright reform as a political platformn important to the people.
adw 17y ago
Interesting reaction from Tom Watson MP, until last week the UK government minister for e-democracy and (more or less) the Internet: "That Sir, is a seismic result, and a big warning to a very large number of vested interests." http://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/2068168426 http://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/2068168426 The Pirate Party and friends are, in many ways, the new face of the libertarian left in Europe.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  "The Pirate Party and friends are, in many ways, the new face of the libertarian left in Europe." I'm curious: What distinguishes "libertarian left" from plain old libertarian?
  - emmett 17y ago
    Focus, mainly. Libertarians have long been aligned with the right in America because they have emphasized the economic parts of their platform, at the expense of the social ones.
    - adw 17y ago
      I'm not sure it really translates - it's a post-socialist phenomenon, and socialism still seems like a swearword your side of the pond. Take issues like gun control, social welfare, environmentalism... the modern European hard left is, in general, strongly in favour of all of the above. Their platform's libertarian in that it's mostly against government intervention in personal lives, and therefore pro-marriage equality, drug decriminalisation, liberalisation of copyright, etc etc etc. You'll find a lot of anti-globalisation fellow travellers too. The influences are much more things like anarcho-syndicalism, Christiania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania), that kind of thing.
      - emmett 17y ago
        I think we're in total agreement. Libertarians share platforms with both the left and the right; we call them "left-libertarians" when they find themselves mostly voting in alignment with the left, and "right-libertarians" when they find themselves mostly voting in agreement with the right. European libertarians, coming from the background you describe, much more often find themselves on the left than the right.
viraptor 17y ago
So people voted on a party which wants to deal with copyright issues of the distributed music/video content (as its main goal)... A party that will now be able to have its say about national and European issues. It's a bit interesting that such an issue can be so high on people's priority list. Not that I'm opposed to what they want to do, but I'm not sure what to think of Sweden right now: Is it the best country to live in? One where people don't come across bigger problems in their daily life? Or is it that all standard political parties in Sweden crossed the line which many parties in any country are very close to - not doing anything, having every possible populist claim in their programme, getting old...
- codeodor 17y ago
  Not sure if you're in the US, but reading your comment, I can't help but linking to an explanation of how legislative seats are dealt out in Sweden (and many other countries). It's not a thing like we have in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Seat_allocation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Seat_alloca... In such a system, it's not uncommon to see a few seats go to minor parties. In the US, we'd surely see some Libertarian and Greens in congress if we had such a system. However, the US system is more conducive to 2-party politics because of the way the rules are defined, which is why we see it here and not so much elsewhere. So, its a surprising result if you're used to 2 parties, but not so unexpected when multiparty politics is the norm.
  - viraptor 17y ago
    Yeah - I'm from Europe and used to multiparty government. Yet every small party I've seen, that actually targeted young people and specifically issues that people <30 care about, never gets to be popular. And they certainly don't get 2 seats in EU. I was just wondering why it happened in Sweden of all countries... was The Pirate Bay court case really the trigger, or is it connected to how Swedish people act, or was it something else?
    - wheels 17y ago
      The Pirate Party has been around in Sweden for a few years already: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party Interestingly, in my own district of Berlin, probably the most left-leaning in Germany, they also polled at 3.4%, whereas the chancellor's party (Christian Democrats) only polled at 9%. This isn't so much about the Pirate Bay as something that's been brewing for a while already. This was, in some senses, just a tipping point for the group as they'll now have a voice outside of Sweden. To my mind this is similar to the ascendency of the The Greens in the 80s as they landed in their first positions of real influence. The particularly interesting thing there is that the effect of real power was an increasing pragmatism at pushing the original core agenda; I wouldn't be surprised if we see something similar evolving in the Pirate Party in the coming years.
erikstarck 17y ago
Just got back from the election party in Stockholm. One seat in the EU parliament is just what (pp) needs for the Riksdagen election 2010. Most likely, there are differences hidden under the purple surface of the party that will show now. The maturity process is started. Will be interesting to see if this spawns copycats throughout Europe. At the very least the established parties should take notice. Infopolitics is here to stay.
- mblakele 17y ago
  I've read that most of the power is tied up in committees (http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13788340 http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story...). If it's like the US House of Representatives, that means seniority is necessary for any real power. Legislation by committee is also a great way to wield power behind closed doors, since the media rarely reports on what they do. Is there an EU equivalent to Congressional Quarterly (http://cq.com/ http://cq.com/)?
  - fbailey 17y ago
    no seniority plays no role that's a very us specific thing
ErrantX 17y ago
Just to put it slightly in perspective: here in the UK the BNP (far right racist party) won a seat too. Getting the seat is just part 1 - next the PP have to cut through the red tape and get the message out to the rest of the EU. (I must apologise for my countrymen btw, I never thought it would actually happen :()
- m_eiman 17y ago
  The Swedish variant of BNP almost got a seat too. It's to be expected, of course, with an economic meltdown. Nothing brings votes to right wing extremists like a crisis and someone else to blame it on - this time it's the muslims who get the blame for everything that's wrong in the world.
Eliezer 17y ago
This is one of the most surreal pieces of news I've seen in a while. No offense to any pirates. Arrr.
stse 17y ago
The Pirate Party has limited information in English and I know it can be hard to understand what they really stand for. So I compiled a summery of their program. Keep in mind that this is only a summery and mostly only says what they stand for and not why they stand for it. This is also not an official document. The Pirate Party’s cornerstones are; the right to privacy, culture must be open/free and that patents and private monopolies hurt society. Privacy: Secrecy of letters should apply to all forms of communication, including digital. No data retention and no surveillance without substantial prior crime suspicion. No anti-terrorism legislation, current legislation is sufficient. New legislation risk being used as a tool of oppression. The individuals right to control ones own personal information must be strengthened. Respect for human rights without exceptions. Freedom of information: Swedish freedom of information laws, access to government documents and communications, should be applied to the EU. All government archives and documents should be available in open formats. Use of open formats and open source in the public sector, including schools, should be encouraged. Open culture: Copyright should be reasonable, balanced and with societies best in mind. The copyright holder’s commercial monopoly should be limited to five years. You should have the right to remix copyrighted works, with some clearly stated exceptions. All non-commercial distribution, consumption and remixing of copyrighted and non-copyrighted works should be legal and encouraged. Trademarks should be kept. Private monopolies: The successive removal of all patents, including software and medical patents. Patents force scientists to keep research findings secret instead of sharing them. Competition should be based on innovation, consumer benefit, and quality.
- michael_dorfman 17y ago
  That's a nice summary of their platform, but it is perhaps also worth noting that one of the defendents in the Pirate Bay case (Carl Lundström) is a neo-Nazi, who has a history of funding small single-issue parties and using them to push extremist right-wing views.
  - stse 17y ago
    Carl Lundström and The Pirate Bay are not affiliated with The Pirate Party. As far as I know the rest of The Pirate Bay do not share Carl Lundströms views. The connection between The Pirate Bay and Carl Lundström is also very loose. The Pirate Party has very clear views on civil liberties and human rights for everyone, regardless of religion, ethnicity, sex, age, sexual preference, handicap or political view. Most political analysts actually think that The Pirate Party, with its large number of youth votes, prevented the right-wing nationalist party in Sweden from reaching the European Parliament.
ErrantX 17y ago
I just wanted to highlight part of a BBC news report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8088309.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8088309.stm): Sweden's Pirate Party, which wants to legalise internet file sharing, They also got mentioned right after the far-right parties. I find it a bit worrying that mainstream media is still vewing them in this light. It smacks of not being taken seriously still - I wonder how that can be addressed?

177 points by mapleoin 17y ago

I think this is the greatest thing to happen in european politics in a long time. Times have changed, and this is a strong message to the establishment that things will need to change a bit regarding some laws!

anigbrowl 17y ago
I share the feeling of optimism, but must point out that the European Parliament is where a lot of good ideas go to die, and it has little in the way of real power. Members include representatives of parties who wan to leave Europe and other relatively fringe thinkers. So it's significant, but not momentously so.
- Sam_Odio 17y ago
  There's a recent WSJ article on the topic that's worth a read: "Serving in Europe's Parliament Is A Cushy Job, but What's the Point? ... Pay, Perks Are Good, Powers Not So Much; Struggling to Get Voters Interested" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390393595074827.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124390393595074827.html
- mixmax 17y ago
  That's a common misconception, actually the European Union has a lot of power, and member states are obliged to align their national laws to those of the EU. From the wikipedia article on EU: "The EU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws which apply in all member states, ensuring the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. It maintains common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries, and regional development. A common currency, the euro, has been adopted by sixteen member states constituting the Eurozone. " (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union) The problem is that for the common man in the various member states EU is seen as a monolithic bureaucracy placed in a country far away. Many don't realise it's power. This is the problem that the members of parlaiment face.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    European Union =/= European Parliament. I suggest that the EU Commission and Council of Ministers, along with the European court, have more influence on the development of the EU than its Parliament; which is not to say that the European Parliament is entirely toothless. The election of a Pirate Party member to that body, while interesting, is likely to have only marginal effect.
    - mixmax 17y ago
      The parlaiment, along with the council is the highest legislative body of the union and yields a lot of power. From Wikipedia: "The European Parliament has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world." Of course, as you say, a single representative from the Pirate Party will only have marginal effect. Those are the rules of a democracy.
      - anigbrowl 17y ago
        I suggest you ponder the rest of that wikipedia article, or since you live in Europe, look at its day-to-day workings for a while. As a fellow European, surely you are aware that in practice the EUP is a punching bag for national governments and widely perceived as a sideshow, which is why nations fight tooth and nail to preserve their commission representation. Given its inability to propose legislation, it is hamstrung compared to a typical national legislature, not to mention being riven by petty disputes of language nationalism and so forth. With the best of intentions, how is the new Pirate Party member going to bring about a provocative debate on the meaning of copyright and intellectual property when everything has to go through a tabling committee and debates normally impose a 1 minute time limit for speakers. Hell, I'm an ardent europhile and even I think it's politically moribund. One upside of this, though, is that I ever move back to Europe I'll consider running for a seat...I figure it ought to be relatively easy to get elected given the general public apathy that prevails around euro elections :)
        vidarh 17y ago
        I agree with you, mostly. However there is one significant effect of the election of the Pirate Part: Swedish political parties have been given a rude awakening and if the Pirate Party continues to gain they will need to face up to the fact that a lot of people want more relaxed copyright legislation, or the Pirate Party may be swept into the Swedish parliament next. (keep in mind: they were polling around 5%, and many dismissed them, claiming that their key demographic of <30's "doesn't vote" - instead they performed better than the polls indicated; that's going to scare a lot of politicians into rethinking their stance) It's also bound to make a lot of people think seriously about trying to get equivalent platforms in place in other EU countries. It's an amazing showing for a "single issue" (not really, but almost) party running in only a single, small country.
endtime 17y ago
Look, I dislike the DMCA as much as anyone, but I don't really think that a party founded on piracy is really a great thing to happen to European politics. At least, not in the respect you imply (that we're going to tell those recording industry fat cats they're not the boss of us!). If they can push honest and realistic discussion of the issues, however, that could have a lot of impact. We all like to laugh at the publishing industry (music, then movies, now newspapers) for being unable to keep up with the times, but just as the web has introduced post-scarity to publishing, so will nanotech destroy the goods industry, robotics destroy the services industry, and, eventually, AI destroy info work. My hope is that we can learn from what is happening now (and try to understand the success of e.g. Trent Reznor, and determine whether his model would work if not for its novelty), and be better prepared for the future. But no one is talking about it...ideally, the Pirate Party will change that, rather than just explain to old dudes why torrent indexing isn't illegal.
- tjogin 17y ago
  The Swedish Pirate Party has a horrible name. Because its political platform is all about preserving the right to personal integrity — not piracy. Certainly, they also believe that copyright and patent law needs to fundamentally change. And certainly, preserving the right to privacy on the internet — to the same standard that it is guaranteed through other means of communications — would make it pretty much impossible to shut down piracy. But that's a side-effect, not the expressed goal of the party. I'm Swedish myself, I've studied their platform closely, and I voted for them. Not because I want free stuff — but because I feel that the EU parliament needs more people in it who are viciously opposed to the idea of destroying our basic civil liberties. Many other candidates from other parties are sympathetic to this (as opposed to their respective party platforms). But — only a vote for the Pirate Party would shake the "old parties" up sufficiently in order to make personal integrity the party platform. And I think we're going to see exactly that kind of progression in Sweden across party lines.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - endtime 17y ago
ErrantX 17y ago
have you seen the rest of the results? PP have done well - one cant help feeling on the back of TPB publicity. But the rest of the left parties have suffered heavy losses. We're looking at a strong conservative EU parliament as far as I can tell. I fear the PP will have little impact (I confess I am not a huge fan but they do stand for some issues I believe strongly in).
- vidarh 17y ago
  Indeed, and when looking at Sweden in particular, the "Left party", which is the only other major party in Sweden that are as open to copyright reform as the Pirate Party, lost out heavily, more or less offsetting the Pirate Party gains. Personally I saw the results as horrible (even the BNP got seats) but the Pirate Party win was at least a little beacon of light, though I mostly see their win as a kick in the ass for the other parties that will hopefully see them starting to reform their own copyright platforms or risk losing the rest of the youth vote too.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    well I guess the hope is similar parties can get a break in other countries (hopefully, for me, w/o worrying links to TPB et all). Your right, it does validate copyright reform as a political platformn important to the people.

adw 17y ago

Interesting reaction from Tom Watson MP, until last week the UK government minister for e-democracy and (more or less) the Internet: "That Sir, is a seismic result, and a big warning to a very large number of vested interests." http://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/2068168426 http://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/2068168426 The Pirate Party and friends are, in many ways, the new face of the libertarian left in Europe.

jamesbritt 17y ago
"The Pirate Party and friends are, in many ways, the new face of the libertarian left in Europe." I'm curious: What distinguishes "libertarian left" from plain old libertarian?
- emmett 17y ago
  Focus, mainly. Libertarians have long been aligned with the right in America because they have emphasized the economic parts of their platform, at the expense of the social ones.
  - adw 17y ago
    I'm not sure it really translates - it's a post-socialist phenomenon, and socialism still seems like a swearword your side of the pond. Take issues like gun control, social welfare, environmentalism... the modern European hard left is, in general, strongly in favour of all of the above. Their platform's libertarian in that it's mostly against government intervention in personal lives, and therefore pro-marriage equality, drug decriminalisation, liberalisation of copyright, etc etc etc. You'll find a lot of anti-globalisation fellow travellers too. The influences are much more things like anarcho-syndicalism, Christiania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania), that kind of thing.
    - emmett 17y ago
      I think we're in total agreement. Libertarians share platforms with both the left and the right; we call them "left-libertarians" when they find themselves mostly voting in alignment with the left, and "right-libertarians" when they find themselves mostly voting in agreement with the right. European libertarians, coming from the background you describe, much more often find themselves on the left than the right.

viraptor 17y ago

So people voted on a party which wants to deal with copyright issues of the distributed music/video content (as its main goal)... A party that will now be able to have its say about national and European issues. It's a bit interesting that such an issue can be so high on people's priority list. Not that I'm opposed to what they want to do, but I'm not sure what to think of Sweden right now: Is it the best country to live in? One where people don't come across bigger problems in their daily life? Or is it that all standard political parties in Sweden crossed the line which many parties in any country are very close to - not doing anything, having every possible populist claim in their programme, getting old...

codeodor 17y ago
Not sure if you're in the US, but reading your comment, I can't help but linking to an explanation of how legislative seats are dealt out in Sweden (and many other countries). It's not a thing like we have in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Seat_allocation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Seat_alloca... In such a system, it's not uncommon to see a few seats go to minor parties. In the US, we'd surely see some Libertarian and Greens in congress if we had such a system. However, the US system is more conducive to 2-party politics because of the way the rules are defined, which is why we see it here and not so much elsewhere. So, its a surprising result if you're used to 2 parties, but not so unexpected when multiparty politics is the norm.
- viraptor 17y ago
  Yeah - I'm from Europe and used to multiparty government. Yet every small party I've seen, that actually targeted young people and specifically issues that people <30 care about, never gets to be popular. And they certainly don't get 2 seats in EU. I was just wondering why it happened in Sweden of all countries... was The Pirate Bay court case really the trigger, or is it connected to how Swedish people act, or was it something else?
  - wheels 17y ago
    The Pirate Party has been around in Sweden for a few years already: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party Interestingly, in my own district of Berlin, probably the most left-leaning in Germany, they also polled at 3.4%, whereas the chancellor's party (Christian Democrats) only polled at 9%. This isn't so much about the Pirate Bay as something that's been brewing for a while already. This was, in some senses, just a tipping point for the group as they'll now have a voice outside of Sweden. To my mind this is similar to the ascendency of the The Greens in the 80s as they landed in their first positions of real influence. The particularly interesting thing there is that the effect of real power was an increasing pragmatism at pushing the original core agenda; I wouldn't be surprised if we see something similar evolving in the Pirate Party in the coming years.

erikstarck 17y ago

Just got back from the election party in Stockholm. One seat in the EU parliament is just what (pp) needs for the Riksdagen election 2010. Most likely, there are differences hidden under the purple surface of the party that will show now. The maturity process is started. Will be interesting to see if this spawns copycats throughout Europe. At the very least the established parties should take notice. Infopolitics is here to stay.

mblakele 17y ago
I've read that most of the power is tied up in committees (http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13788340 http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story...). If it's like the US House of Representatives, that means seniority is necessary for any real power. Legislation by committee is also a great way to wield power behind closed doors, since the media rarely reports on what they do. Is there an EU equivalent to Congressional Quarterly (http://cq.com/ http://cq.com/)?
- fbailey 17y ago
  no seniority plays no role that's a very us specific thing

ErrantX 17y ago

Just to put it slightly in perspective: here in the UK the BNP (far right racist party) won a seat too. Getting the seat is just part 1 - next the PP have to cut through the red tape and get the message out to the rest of the EU. (I must apologise for my countrymen btw, I never thought it would actually happen :()

m_eiman 17y ago
The Swedish variant of BNP almost got a seat too. It's to be expected, of course, with an economic meltdown. Nothing brings votes to right wing extremists like a crisis and someone else to blame it on - this time it's the muslims who get the blame for everything that's wrong in the world.

Eliezer 17y ago

This is one of the most surreal pieces of news I've seen in a while. No offense to any pirates. Arrr.

stse 17y ago

The Pirate Party has limited information in English and I know it can be hard to understand what they really stand for. So I compiled a summery of their program. Keep in mind that this is only a summery and mostly only says what they stand for and not why they stand for it. This is also not an official document. The Pirate Party’s cornerstones are; the right to privacy, culture must be open/free and that patents and private monopolies hurt society. Privacy: Secrecy of letters should apply to all forms of communication, including digital. No data retention and no surveillance without substantial prior crime suspicion. No anti-terrorism legislation, current legislation is sufficient. New legislation risk being used as a tool of oppression. The individuals right to control ones own personal information must be strengthened. Respect for human rights without exceptions. Freedom of information: Swedish freedom of information laws, access to government documents and communications, should be applied to the EU. All government archives and documents should be available in open formats. Use of open formats and open source in the public sector, including schools, should be encouraged. Open culture: Copyright should be reasonable, balanced and with societies best in mind. The copyright holder’s commercial monopoly should be limited to five years. You should have the right to remix copyrighted works, with some clearly stated exceptions. All non-commercial distribution, consumption and remixing of copyrighted and non-copyrighted works should be legal and encouraged. Trademarks should be kept. Private monopolies: The successive removal of all patents, including software and medical patents. Patents force scientists to keep research findings secret instead of sharing them. Competition should be based on innovation, consumer benefit, and quality.

michael_dorfman 17y ago
That's a nice summary of their platform, but it is perhaps also worth noting that one of the defendents in the Pirate Bay case (Carl Lundström) is a neo-Nazi, who has a history of funding small single-issue parties and using them to push extremist right-wing views.
- stse 17y ago
  Carl Lundström and The Pirate Bay are not affiliated with The Pirate Party. As far as I know the rest of The Pirate Bay do not share Carl Lundströms views. The connection between The Pirate Bay and Carl Lundström is also very loose. The Pirate Party has very clear views on civil liberties and human rights for everyone, regardless of religion, ethnicity, sex, age, sexual preference, handicap or political view. Most political analysts actually think that The Pirate Party, with its large number of youth votes, prevented the right-wing nationalist party in Sweden from reaching the European Parliament.

ErrantX 17y ago

I just wanted to highlight part of a BBC news report (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8088309.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8088309.stm): Sweden's Pirate Party, which wants to legalise internet file sharing, They also got mentioned right after the far-right parties. I find it a bit worrying that mainstream media is still vewing them in this light. It smacks of not being taken seriously still - I wonder how that can be addressed?