22 Pirate Parties from all over the world officially founded the Pirate Parties International

This weekend from April 16th to 18th, delegates of Pirate Parties from 22 countries created the Pirate Parties International (PPI). The aim of this international organization of Pirate Parties is to help establish, to support and promote, and to maintain communication and cooperation between Pirate Parties around the world.

Even though nature was sending rough waters by means of volcanic ashes, closed airspace and the train strike in France, it wasn't an obstacle for Pirates from 18 countries to find a safe harbor in Brussels. "As the Pirate movement is growing and getting momentum, it was the next logical step to found an international organization to coordinate the efforts of the Pirate Parties to cooperate on an international level" says PPI Co-Chairman Gregory Engels.

After a tour of the European Parliament and a speech of Swedish Pirate MEP Christian Engström on Friday April 16th, 32 delegates from 18 countries gathered in Brussels to discuss the statutes of the PPI. An easy way to follow the conference had been arranged for those who were cut out of Brussels completely, as all Pirates worldwide could follow the sessions over a video stream and take part in the group discussions over chat. Shortly after 22h00 on Saturday April 17th the delegates and remote participants accepted the statutes of the Pirate Parties International.

On Sunday April 18th, the conference closed with the election of the new board. The two Co-Chairmen of the PPI will be Gregory Engels from Germany and Jerry Weyer from Luxembourg. Nicolas Sahlqvist from Sweden was elected Treasurer and Joachim Mönch from Germany is the new Chief Administrative Officer of the PPI. The board is completed with Bogomil "Bogo" Shopov from Bulgaria, Jakub Michalek from the Czech Republic and Aleksander Blagojevic from Serbia.

"The first objective is to improve the internal communication of the PPI" says Co-Chairman Jerry Weyer. "We will also continue to establish taskforces for current common topics of the Pirate Parties, like ACTA or INDECT. And of course we will improve the structure of the PPI, for example by creating the headquarters that will serve as administrative entity or by inviting everyone to propose amendments to the statutes."

For more information, contact the board via board (at) pp-international.net or visit http://www.pp-international.net .

----

Founding members of the PPI are the Pirate Parties from:
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Kazakhstan
Luxembourg
The Netherlands
Portugal
Romania
Russian Federation
Serbia
Spain
Switzerland
United Kingdom

A PDF version of the statutes of the Pirate Parties International can be found here:
http://int.piratenpartei.de/images/a/a6/Statutes_of_the_Pirate_Parties_International.pdf

The board would like to thank Swedish Pirate Party MEP Christian Engström, his assistant Henrik Alexandersson together with Mattias Bjärnemalm (Amelia Andersdotter - Lisbon MEP assistant) who helped us arranging the European Parliament visitors tour with the Swedish EP visitors group (Olaf Pries, Nina Rautelin and Elina Kaartinen). This ensured that most of the travel costs were covered and thereby ensured that most Pirate Parties could participate. We also like to thank Jurgen Rateau, Monica and Gilles from Pirate Party Belgium for their hard work with the conference location and social activities in Brussels.