PPI (Pirate Parties International)

First question: Yes
Second question: Yes if there is a candidate?

First question : No. Actually, I'd like to have some motivation to stay in the PPI (if we are still member, as we didn't pay any fee). For me, PPI never demonstrated its purpose and its uselfulness. As a reminder, we had this kind of debate a long time ago (see https://wiki.pirateparty.be/Pirate_Assembly_Spring_2015/Feedback_FollowUp#Pirate_Party_International for instance), and when we talked about PPEU last year the topic showed up again : https://www.loomio.org/d/B9G1WsfK/european-pirate-party

Does the PPBE still want to be a member of the PPI ? : No.

• Because we still don't know what PPI is useful for, and it will cost us time/energy/money.
• Also, Pirates from Sweden, Iceland, UK, Australia are not even part of PPI or left it some years ago and didn't rejoin.
• Finally, the structure itself of PPI is a complete turn-off (why have delegates and only Pirate Parties as members instead of individuals? It means every PP has to take a decision that will then be delegated?).

And same as @hgo as we are in a limbo state (are we member or are we not), I'd like to see a motivation behind the "Yes" answers.

Hmm, seems we are to late. (see below)
* Nevertheless I'd like to keep the debate opened. From a tactical and relational standpoint it's not wise not to be present.
* Pirates make other Pirate Parties more influencual, whatever the ship. Parallel power-structures should be at least kept close.
* There are certain advantages to a membership that are important in more international coöperative oriented politics. We can learn from each other and not just as a marketing tool but as more profound way to spread our common message and solutions.
* The platform is bigger and it's an opportunity to break out of nationalistic boundaries.
* If the structure of the PPI is unpleasing to our eyes, it should at least be clearly communicated. It could be the first point on our agenda to the PPI. But as I mentioned before, it's too late for this round, unless we appoint a independent perhaps to formally reintroduce the PPBE and apply for membership under restrictions for example. In this frame the basics of cooperation can be maintained and indivduality for the PPBE is granted, while our criticism is officially logged. We can even make news out of it. In that way we also learn?

(3) Requests for Membership shall be submitted in writing to the Board at least four weeks before the meeting of the General Assembly. They shall include contact information and a statement on the adoption of the statutes and internal regulations of the Pirate Parties International, in addition to a copy of the statutes and by-laws and the political program of the applicant and information on the background and organization of said applicant. The Board will transmit the application to all Members at least two weeks before the meeting of the General Assembly.

This cooperation can also come from individual countries talking to each other. The delegation part is problematic as it is recreating the problems we want to avoid. I would like to know e.g. from the Prague pp what is their view on this representation.

-First question: yes. Eendracht maakt macht; L’union fait la force; Einigkeit macht stark. It seems normal to me that it doesn’t work perfectly, certainly considering the fact that as it is a young organization.
-Second question: for that question, I have no comment.

ATM I'll stand by the remarks and concerns of @hgo @vanecx and @josse

For al the reasons that membership would/could be a good thing, Im' not convinced that PPI has the correct structure to do that. To me it feels to much like a top-down structure. (They set the rules, you have to apply, you need a delegate...) This could all improve yes, but that doesn't mean we need to be part of it now.

I agree that we could communicate our concerns clearly, however, we do not need to be members to do that.
The way I see it is; Either we make a text togheter (which I'm not sure a lot of people will be interested in doing) and submit that as PPBE, or someone (not me) can take the objections and remarks that are already given and submit those to PPI under their own name (and feel free to link them to the relevant threads). Both would be fine by me.
If we see that those remarks are bein taken into account, then maybe we can reach consensus about our relationship towards PPI.

Extra note: I've asked on fedi how PPNL's stand is towards PPI, the person who answered me seems positive[1]. They've also relayed my questions.

[1] https://mastodon.pirateparty.be/@Ilja/101003635070820690

I think the blocker for me is mostly the fact that you need a delegate (at least as I understand from the other comments). It seems like that person represents PPBE as a whole. I really don't like that idea.
An aproach I'd be much more comfortable with is if PPI is an entity on it's own who allow an induvidual to be member (as already proposed above).
That person can then, in name of PPI, contact local (or better, national) parties (and will probably be part of that party). This keeps sovereignty in the hand of the local (or, well, national) parties, without being in conflict with the mission of PPI (to help establish, to support and promote, and to maintain communication and co-operation between pirate parties around the world.[1]).
This would also be more bottom up since everyone keep their sovereignty (including PPI). In this sheme PPI would only act as an intermediaire from the side (as wiewed from the local, or national, parties).

In that senario we wouldn't even have to decide on becoming a member!
BAM, another conflict resolved :laughing:

Extra note: I should mention that it is possible now for individuals to become members, but they don't have full rights, so not really what's been proposed here, but maybe a step in the right direction?

[1] https://pp-international.net/about-ppi/statutes-of-ppi/
[2] https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=Become_an_Individual_Member_of_PPI

I agree with everything @iljabaert just said :)

The GA happened this weekend, and I watched almost everything, the 2 whole days. And it was painful to watch, to be sincere.

There are delegates in the room + delegates online, so they attempted to setup something to make every delegate able to participate. But the concrete result was that about 1/3 of the GA was "we're taking a break to solve technical issues", "sorry for being so late", "did the online delegate from Country X vote or does he abstain?".

Another third of the time was procedural discussion. Just as an example, today at 14:20 they started discussing about the fact there would not be enough time to do all the agenda. It lasted almost a whole hour just to decide to do the rest of the GA next weekend...

Not only were the discussions very procedural, but also the motions. On saturday, it was the motions about the statutes (4 motions, 1 was removed by the author just before for some reason, 2 were rejected, 1 was approved). Today, there were 3 or 4 motions (not discussed, because they were moved to later, as said above). 1 about creating a commission to change the statutes, 1 to change the membership fee, 1 to adopt an online voting tool.

These motions don't seem to have been discussed beforehand between Pirates. The voting procedures don't seem to have been much prepared either.

Between that, there were some speeches yesterday (1 advocate for whistleblowing, 1 from Czech Pirates explaining what they did to achieve their electoral success). Interesting, but it seems PPI did not record them...

So, as much as I also agree on the principle and the importance of international collaboration between Pirates, I do not see how gathering about 30 Pirates for a whole weekend and produce basically nothing is helping us achieve that goal (except the fact it makes these Pirates meet in person).

Did you take note of the Czech pirates speech?