Dear Pirates,

we would like to invite you to the 2014 Pirate Parties International Conference which will be held on April 12th and 13st in Paris, France. During this conference, the General Assembly - PPI's highest body - will decide upon
the admittance of new members to the PPI,
elect a new board and
discuss and vote on amendments to the PPI statutes.
The preliminary timetable can be found at the end of this message.

Open Space: Emerging Issues for the Global Society

Registration is still open for our first political conference:

"ThinkTwice: Away from Keyboard" in Frankfurt on February 22nd and 23rd, 2014.

We are pleased that we have been able to find renowned and competent speakers who will outline different topics, among those are

• Dr. Maria Aretoulaki, United Kingdom,
  "From Voice Recognition to A.I. and FBI"
• Guido Strack, Germany (Chairman of the German Whistleblower Network)
  "Practical experiences exercising human rights as an EU-official and whistleblower",
• Annette Schaper, Germany (Peace Research Institute Frankfurt),
  "Transparency in Nuclear Disarmament".

Over all there are thirtyseven speakers from fourteen countries. The conference aims to bridge the world of Pirates, NGOs and Academics - most accepted speakers have been published on the conference website.

This was a significant day for PPI: our first paper was published on the website of the ninth Ministerial Conference of the WTO and addresses the WTO members to include provisions for public licences into the TRIPS Agreement. During this informative week in Bali we decided to stick on our plan to also publish a paper on an international treaty for the protection of personal data (i.e. against surveillance). Though we didn't do it for the current conference as it would have been out of scope.

On the third day of the WTO ninth Ministerial Conference we again attended some interesting sessions. "Bread for the world" facilitated a workshop discussion about "The Big Deal: United States/European Union Free Trade Agreement TTIP - Risks and Opportunities". That resulted in a vivid discussion on several aspects of the TTIP agreement including its transparency and the deficit of democratic influence.

We also visited the following other sessions:

Today, we went over to the Bali Trade and Development Symposium (hashtag #BaliTDS) in order to attend some sessions and to network there. On a way we met a representative from the German delegation who explained us some peculiarities of the conference proceedings. So we have been in the following sessions today: "The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement", a meeting from Friedrich Ebert Stiftung "Make the Right Impact!

The first day of the WTO ninth ministerial conference is over. We have found our way around the venue and have met some very interesting people. In the morning we have attended the briefing from International Digital Economy Alliance (IDEA) together with ARIN and Rackspace on regulating the Internet from the trade perspective (summarized: they want to keep the internet open and whole, not letting countries splitting it into multiple national internets). Over the course of the day we have met, discussed and exchanged business cards with

The WTO Secretariat has granted the Pirate Parties International (PPI) the right to observe the WTO's upcoming ninth ministerial conference in Bali, Indonesia. The observer status allows PPI to send a delegation of up to four people to the conference to actively advocate for the goals of the pirate parties movement. PPI will mainly advocate for two issues that it considers to be the most pressing: an international treaty against surveillance, and the inclusion of provisions for free licenses into the TRIPS treaty.

In the current Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), Pirate Parties International (PPI) have been denied a permanent observer status on objections from the delegations of USA (as a speaker for the industrialized countries), Belgium and Poland.

The rules of procedure state that a unanimous decision regarding the admittance of observing NGOs is required. Therefore any voiced objection was enough to turn down PPI's application.

"The WIPO is accepting NGOs as observer members in order to get a full picture on the topics it is covering. There are many organizations representing the copyright industries, and very few representing other parts of society. By denying PPI's observer membership application, WIPO has made it obvious that it is not interested in an open debate that includes all players of civil society, but would rather embrace the copyright industry lobbyists," states PPI's Co-Chairman Gregory Engels.

Today, Pirates from 15 countries have come together in Luxembourg for the foundation of the European Pirate Party (PPEU). This step prepares the jointly organized participation of Pirate Parties across Europe in the upcoming European elections in Mai 2014.



Gregory Engels, co-chairman of the Pirate Parties International: "The Pirate Party movement is unique in its international extent, having the unprecedented opportunity to address the real important trans-national political issues."

Yesterday the sad news arrived that Jurgen Rateau, co-founder and former president of Pirate Party Belgium has passed away. Our thoughts are with Jurgen's family and friends to which we send our deepest condolences.

Jurgen was a critical observer of the Pirate movement and the Pirate Parties International since the beginning. Without any desire for fame or public appreciation, Jurgen tirelessly invested his time and effort as a member of the PPI Court of Arbitration, as member of the PPI HQ, as organizer of the founding Assembly of the PPI in Brussels as well as a participant in all PPI Assemblies to date.

The Pirate movement knows Jurgen as a man of great intellect and sense of humor. Jurgen was always generous and supportive, never held back with his opinion. His straight-forward attitude will be remembered as well as his willingness to help and support.

We lost a friend and a great person. Rest in peace Jurgen Rateau!