Correct me if I’m wrong, but we need to be recognized as a european party in order to enable pirate parties to support each other financially.
This is the reason behind the statutory change to allow parties which doesn’t have “Pirate” in their name.
The goal is to onboard parties ASAP to request the European Party status and support each other financially for the 2024 European campaign and elections, right ?
I don’t know what was discussed in the previous board, but given the rules regarding European political parties, and our current membership setup, I would assess that there is close to zero chance of getting recogniced as a European political party, and to receive any funding in that capacity, before the elections next year.
Just asking to clear things here, because if the MEPs think they can get enough parties in for the 2024 elections, we will have to put ensuring compliance and reviewing our statutes as top 1 priority I think.
You need not only member parties but also a certain number of those parties to have elected representatives at regional, national (or European?) levels. So I guess we will see how it all goes during the European and next rounds of various national elections.
Seven, if I’m not mistaken.
There’s currently two options to get recogniced (and receive funding) as a European Political Party:
A: “its member parties must be represented by, in at least one quarter of the Member States, members of the European Parliament, of national parliaments, of regional parliaments or of regional assemblies”
This means that we need 7 countries, and we currently have 3 (Germany, Czechia and Luxembourg). Should the EU enlarge to 29 Member States, the requirement would go up to 8 countries.
B: “it or its member parties must have received, in at least one quarter of the Member States, at least three per cent of the votes cast in each of those Member States at the most recent elections to the European Parliament”
In the last EU election we reached this threshold in 2 countries (Czechia and Luxembourg).
The current rules governing European Political Parties
The website of APPF ( Authority for European Political Parties and
European Political Foundations), which is the entity that decides on applications for recognition as a European Political Party.
Please be aware that the EU is currently negotiating changes to these rules. And while the requirments for how to get recogniced are not foreseen to change as far as I know, the rules for how the party should function internally is likely to change somewhat. So there’s no real reason for us to look into how to comply with the rules until we actually have reached one of the two thresholds.
My advice would be to keep in mind that this is a long term goal of the party, and to always be on the lookout for new potential partners that could fit with our party, and help us reach one of the two thresholds. If you need help reaching out to any party for this purpose, please don’t hesitate to coordinate with me on how to best do it.