Party of the Week: Pirate Party of Luxembourg

This week's Pirate Party of the Week is the Pirate Party of Luxembourg.

Will the Pirate Party of Luxembourg participate in any upcoming elections? Please tell us about your expectations for the next elections you will participate in.

Our plan is to participate in the next national and European elections in 2014. We might be able to participate in local elections earlier, but it's not our ultimate goal.

There is no fixed threshold in Luxembourg (like in Germany f.ex. with the 5% rule), but we would need about 3% to enter national parliament (based on previous elections). The threshold for European elections would be even higher with approx. 16-18% for one seat.

We need 2% of the votes to get financial support. Our expectations are that we get enough votes to be eligible for financial support and hope for the best to get one seat.

What are the core topics of the Pirate Party of Luxembourg? Are there topics that are unique to the Pirate Party of Luxembourg, something that distinguishes them from other Pirate Parties?

The core topics of PP-Lu are the same as most Pirate Parties: transparency of the government/state, respect of the private life of the citizens, reform of copyright and patent law etc.

Apart from those "traditional" pirate topics PP-LU has one particular issue: we call it "open Europe in an open world". The main problem in this topic is that, as one of the smallest countries in the world, Luxembourg relies on an "open" Europe. It's not a coincidence that one of the most famous towns in Europe is Luxemburgish: Schengen. We as the Pirate Party want this openness to expand to the net and the new technologies in general. For us it is contradicting that companies like Amazon or Ebay have their seat in Luxembourg, but when it comes to buying a TV from Amazon we get a "cannot be delivered to your country" or when we want to buy a CD on iTunes we get a "not available in your country". These and similar topics are covered in the "open Europe" part of our party program.

Tell us more about the inner structure of PP- Luxembourg.

PP Luxembourg was founded on October 4th 2009. Since then we managed to participate in different events, f.ex. freedom not fear or an event against surveillance cameras in Luxembourg city. We are also regularly present in the press and were often the first (and sometimes the only) political party to point out certain topics, like ACTA, Swift, data retention laws or data leaks.

The highest organ of PP-LU is the national congress which takes place once a year and fixes the political guidelines for the party as well as elects a new board.The board of PP-LU is composed of 7 members who run the party according to the guidelines of the national congress. Our statutes provide for regional parties, but they have not been set up yet.

If you think 5 years ahead, what will be different compared to today's situation?

Concerning PP-LU we will have participated in our first elections. That means we should have created a stronger structure (regional parties), gained more members, and have more money due to financial support after the elections. A seat would be great, but is rather unlikely.

Concerning our topics in Luxembourg, we hope that in 5 years politicians will see that our issues can no longer be ignored. Some of our ideas will be incorporated by other political parties, others will make us an important player in the politics of our country.
Concerning the Pirate movement in general, we hope for some more Pirates in the EU Parliament and in national Parliaments. We also hope that in 5 years the international cooperation will be even stronger among Pirate Parties, as national structural problems slowly disappear.

How do you manage to keep your financial balance? Do you have any special fund-raising methods? How can people support PP- Luxembourg?

PP-LU asks for a subscription fee of 36€ (18€ for students, even less for "special" cases). We also accept donations, and some members have been quite generous, especially when it comes to raising money for a specific purpose (like buying merchandise).

How many members does PP- Luxembourg have at the moment? Can foreigners become members of PP- Luxembourg?

PP-LU currently has 65 members, more than half of them paying members. We are particularly proud to say that with 250.000 eligible voters in Luxembourg, we have one of the highest members per voters quota of all Pirate Parties ;).

Foreigners are more than welcome to become members of PP-LU and have the same rights as the Luxemburgish members.

Something Else?

From the beginning PP-LU has been very active concerning international cooperation with other Pirate Parties. We did avoid a lot of mistakes our neighbour made only by watching and learning. First of all we want to thank every Pirate who ever helped us and second of all encourage every Pirate to do the same and visit his neighbours. The Internet is great, but face-to-face contact is invaluable.

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• Pirate Party of Luxembourg Website: http://piratepartei.lu/
• Pirate Party of Luxembourg on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PirateparteiLu
• Pirate Party of Luxembourg on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PirateparteiLu

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