Report Secretary General January - February 2026

Mab · February 22, 2026, 5:13pm

*This is the sixth report that I write to the board since I started the role as Secretary General. These reports will normally be conducted on a monthly basis, and they are submitted to the board ahead of their meetings, in line with the rules for the Secretary General. The format of the reports are likely to develop over time. Feel free to post questions and suggestions for improvements in this thread.

Due to holidays and some organisational issues there was no report in December 2025. This report covers January 2026, as well as the first half of February 2026.

After this report, future reports will most likely be shared through Outline instead of Discourse*

/Mab

January

Monthly Report – January 2026 –

Prepared by: Management Team
Date: 16.02.2026

January Overview

January focused mainly on internal organisation and preparation for the Council Meeting. Teams continued their regular work while also looking at how to improve coordination and planning for the 2026 Work Plan. Alongside operational and communication activities, policy-related work progressed, including consultation responses and internal structuring. Some organisational topics were also discussed that may require follow-up.

1. Team Updates

1.1 IT Team

In January, the IT team focused on security, stability and maintainability.

Added anubis, crowdsec, geoblocking and rate-limiting to improve security posture.
Migrated secrets management to age and sops, reducing dependency on Github.
Introduced resource limits for containers to prevent the server from running out of resources if one container goes rogue.
Added healthchecks and auto-restarting to containers.
Integrated an external European status page provider to monitor infrastructure externally: https://european-pirate-party.status.phare.io
Fixed an issue with ActivityPub on the webpage.

Additionally:

Cleaned up the “Getting started” IT documentation.
Started setting up a more structured helpdesk system, moving away from Mattermost DMs.
Evaluating a calendar solution; SSO/OIDC compatibility remains a challenge, with some features still pending.
Planning onboarding of at least two new members, with further interviews scheduled.

1.2 Communications Team

In January, the Communications team focused on content production, coordination and external engagement.

Published Posts:

Europe’s Open-Source Digital Strategy: Bottlenecks to Navigate
Embracing Linguistic Diversity: Shaping the Voice of Europe’s AI Future
Europe’s Open-Source Digital Strategy: The Pirate Perspective
Report on European Pirates 20th Council Meeting (Slovenia)
The EU’s Evolving Surveillance Laws Model

Team Development:

Four new editorial contributors joined the team.
Mili joined as Visual Designer.
Beatriz and Hugo left the team.

External Events:

Attended an event on EU digital sovereignty and open-source AI initiatives.
Attended the 20th Council Meeting in Slovenia.
Registered for the event “Information Integrity and Wikipedia.”

Internal Coordination:

Continued weekly team meetings.
Further integrated Boards to streamline workflow planning.
Implemented a temporary shared topic list between Policy and Communications in Outline.

1.3 Outreach Team

The Outreach team focused primarily on preparation for the Council Meeting.

Conducted a headcount review following volunteer withdrawals.
Began identifying new roles needed for the 2026 Work Plan.
Recruitment discussions are ongoing.

1.4 Policy Team

In January, the Policy Team focused on internal structuring and policy-related work.

Documented the process for managing and responding to consultations.
Completed the response to the Open Digital Ecosystem consultation.
Continued work on reorganising the Knowledge Library.

Team Development:

Three new team members started:
- Ozlenir Carikci
- Iqra Khan
- Vera Calabrese
Ionna Kalli moved from the Management Team to join the Policy Team as assistant.

1.5 Finance Team

No formal update was submitted for January. It was noted that a new Finance Team Lead will need to be identified.

1.6 Operations Team

No formal update was submitted for January.

2. Organisational Notes

During internal discussions, the following points were raised:

The need for clearer task tracking across teams, possibly through a shared board or document.
Alignment of team capacity with the 2026 Work Plan.
Recruitment needs across some teams.
Improved live social media activity during meetings.
Work towards ensuring all team members have functional official email accounts.
A Board statement related to developments in Slovenia is expected to be published.

Mid-February

Monthly Report – Mid February 2026 –

Prepared by: Management Team
Date: 16.02.2026

Mid February Overview

The first half of February focused on follow-up after the Council Meeting and continued organisational adjustments. With the 2026 Work Plan and Budget adopted, teams are aligning their activities, timelines and recruitment needs accordingly. Work during this period included ongoing consultation responses, internal structuring and process improvements across different areas. Coordination and organisational clarity remain ongoing priorities.

1. Team Updates

1.1 IT Team

The IT team continued focusing on security, stability and maintainability.

Infrastructure & Systems

Updated the Discourse setup and moved it to the new Hetzner server.
Enabled OIDC logins for Wordpress and Discourse, reducing the number of separate accounts required within the secretariat.
Deactivated long inactive Mattermost users.
Obtained a storage box on Hetzner for backups, with future potential for internal file-sharing.
Experimenting with custom plumbing software to sync OIDC permissions and groups across other secretariat tools.
Continuing domain unification under europeanpirates.eu, with alias/redirect from european-pirateparty.eu.
Clarified that services running on other domains (e.g. ppeu.net) are not managed by the IT team.

Support & Communication

Introduced a new support process and announced it on Mattermost.
Help resources available at:
https://help.europeanpirates.eu
https://getstarted.europeanpirates.eu
Addressed Mattermost notification issues related to limited email capacity with Migadu. A temporary batching workaround has been implemented while exploring a long-term solution for transactional emails.

Team Development

Onboarded 3 new IT team members: Romain, Przemyslaw and Eduardo.