Below you can find an email sent from the Czech Pirate Party International Coordinator to the European Pirate Party Board 09,11,2023
Dear European Pirates, dear Board,
The Czech Pirate Party has discussed the CEEP extensively. After three months of internal work, the Pirate Party of Czechia has decided to officially accept the Common European Election Programme and Strategy (via the decision of the Republic Committee of the party on November 5th 2023).
However, we have a few requests for clarification, and two derogations that will be listed below.
Clarifications
Clarifications are parts where we concluded that the current text can be interpreted in more ways and we want to make sure that we are on the same page. We believe that the text does not need to change (but it could help the clarity of the text in some cases), but we ask for comments on the text.
Clarifying comments are suggested in the text, these can be further talked about. They are provided only to clearly communicate where we see the issues.
1 - Agriculture
Original text
Subsidies only for the public good
Financial support must be granted according to sustainability criteria and not based on the land area or production.
PPCZ comment
Here the goal is clearly to reduce the dependence on size via absolute caps (e.g. you do not get more funds for hectares above 120ha) or degressive allocations of support. Unfortunately, the text can also be read as that land area should have NO weight in the decision, which would be extremely problematic to implement and in many cases does not make sense.
Proposed clarification:
“Our goal is to reduce the motivation to create giant farms reaping benefits from public funds. The land area as a criterion should not be completely abandoned, but the EU should introduce limiting solutions (e.g. cap on subsidized land area, stricter sustainability criteria).”
2 - Animal welfare
Original text
Pirates support strengthening measures ensuring appropriate care and management and less painful slaughter, such as the phase-out of cage farming as soon as possible, introducing species-specific standards for all farmed animals, ban on the export of live animals to third countries, and reduction of long journeys of live animals by introducing strict absolute time limits.
PPCZ comment
While in principle we support animal welfare, a simple ban on all animal export to third countries is a blunt tool. We need to say clearly that we support adequacy agreements allowing for regular trade with countries with good animal welfare standards, cross-border trade for small-distance exchange (e.g. from Romania to Moldova) and so on.
Proposed clarification:
The ban should have multiple conditions and specific measures and should not apply e.g. to short-distance trade between neighbouring countries or animals transported for breeding purposes.
(adapted according to the Agriculture Team of PPCZ)
3 - Citizen Participation and Open Government - Democracy Add-On for Europe
Original text
Pirates advocate for a directly elected citizens’ convention tasked with drafting a new EU treaty that will clarify and replace current treaties and address the need for democratic reform within the Union, provided it is accepted by the citizens of the Union through a referendum.
PPCZ comment
PPCZ wants to clarify that this acceptance referendum should not be mandatory in all cases. We have high fairness standards for referendums and the text should clarify the existence of rigged referendums, referendums manipulated by outside interference and so on.
Clarification text:.
As for all referendums and other tools of direct democracy, this has to include high standards and strict campaign regulations in order to ensure fair, informed and a truly democratic vote.
4 - Citizenship Add On for Europe
Original text
The European Pirate Party believes that everyone in the European Union should have the right to real EU citizenship. This citizenship should come with an EU passport and physical and digital documents recognized all over the EU as European citizenship.
PPCZ comment
It is not clear if we mean everybody in the EU or the citizens of EU member states. PPCZ asks for a clarifying comment, stating clearly that not everyone should be immediately endowed with European citizenship.
Here we leave the proposal on the clarifying text fully on PPEU.
5 - Civil society
Original text
We believe that civil society participation is crucial for a healthy and vibrant democracy. Therefore, we are committed to promoting and supporting the work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) across the EU. To achieve this, we propose increasing public awareness of the importance of civil society participation and encouraging greater participation through education and outreach programs.
PPCZ comment
This paragraph can be interpreted as a support for all NGOs in the Union. Sadly, a lot of them do not support the fundamental values and vibrant democracy (from Ordo Iuris to different tools of authoritarian governments).
Proposed clarification:
“Not all NGOs serve civil society and democracy. We will support only NGOs respecting fundamental democratic values and human rights.”
6 - Democracy for Europe - Citizenship
We will be able to issue European passports, allowing any European citizen to be recognised as a part of a concept larger than their own countries in the ideal of a borderless world.
PPCZ Comment
There are some not really nice options in the “borderless scenario”, like single authoritarian world government. We propose that we clear this up by a simple clarifying comment.
Clarification text:
“We see the borderless ideal in freedom of movement and trade, not in achieving the unification of the world under a single power.”
7 - Transparency of public sector
PPCZ Comment
For clarity, PPCZ asks for the addition of the following comment:
Clarification
All public dealings should be transparent by default, with exceptions possible: but always needing a reasoned justification of secrecy.
8 - Right to Privacy
(whole paragraph)
PPCZ comment
While in principle PPCZ agrees with the content, closer reading moved us to ask a clarifying comment on possible exceptions to the rule.
Clarification:
Data retention should be possible for practical reasons in systems like healthcare and tax collection. We want to make clear that the listing of a person on the sanction list of the Union does not constitute a breach of the privacy principles.
DEROGATIONS
PPCZ found itself unable to comply with two parts of CEEP. The Republic Committee has decided that the following parts are not compatible with our long-term program and/or current political situation. Since they constitute a minor part of the document, we still would like to ratify the CEEP with the following exceptions:
Citizen Participation and Open Government - Democracy Add-On for Europe
Whole paragraph:
Direct democracy at the EU level, i.e. pan-EU referendums on constitutional revisions and citizen-initiated legislative referendums, should be part of the new constitution. Citizens shall have the right both to repeal existing legislation and initiate new legislation.
Reasoning:
On 5.11. 2023, PPCZ has changed its long-term programme on direct democracy after its Parliamentary and government experience. We do not endorse this form of direct democracy anymore and do not believe that there should be a possibility of easy, pan-European repeal of any legislation.
Whole parts on: Migration, An Ethical and Effective Immigration System, Asylum
Reasoning:
While PPCZ supports the attempt to balance out all the different aspects of the problem, the current texts do not reflect enough on the current situation and especially concerning the sensitivity of the migration issue in Czechia they are in PPCZ’s opinion not drafted well enough.
As a solution, PPCZ would like to respectfully ask PPEU to draft a new special document on Migration and Asylum as a stand-alone political resolution.
Next steps
To reiterate: PPCZ is accepting the CEEP, on the condition that the above-mentioned ambiguities in the text will be clarified with additional interpretative comments (without the need to edit the text), and on the condition that above mentioned paragraph on direct democracy and articles on migration and asylum will not be binding for PPCZ.
We encourage drafting of a new special resolution on migration by the PPEU in order to address this crucial challenge.
On behalf of the Pirate Party of Czechia
David František Wagner
Programme working group of the Republic Committee
Michal Gill
International coordinator
"The board suggests that:
“the Council notes the reservations to some parts of the CEEP from PPCZ, and stresses that any Member party is free to add interpretative comments to the CEEP, to better explain it, in their national context.”