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The Pirate Party received 7.13% of the total Swedish votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections, which resulted in one seat in the European parliament.
By: Daniel Östlund, MEP, Pirate Party member, Sweden
I am a member of the Pirate Party and I am proud of it. I joined early this year and would consider myself a grass roots supporter. I have been following their development from day one. For a long time I have been unable to find a party that I feel represents my beliefs and me as a person.
On January 1, 2006, the founder of The Pirate Bay, Rickard Falkvinge, opened a website for people interested in forming a new political party. His goal was to receive as many names as possible in order to form a party that would focus on preserving the immaterial rights and privacies of the individual.
Within 48 hours the site had received 3 million hits. It quickly became clear that The Pirate Party was something many people had been waiting for. It was ready to ask the questions that people like me wanted to see on the agenda in the Swedish parliament as well as the EU. The Pirate Party is often portrayed as being a party of discontent or a ‘one question’ party. I disagree and I feel their campaign agenda and what they stand for is so much more than that.
I strongly feel they will be able to make a difference and will bring a more current and socially relevant view to politics in Europe. Laws such as the recently enacted IPRED-directive” (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive) which makes it possible for copyright holders to obtain a court order demanding the release of personal information related to users and organisations suspected of copyright infringements as well as IP addresses. The copyright holders will then be able to use the information to bring cases for compensation against the suspected individuals.
I feel this has significantly impacted the basic freedoms of the Swedish people. I strongly believe that had The Pirate Party been present when this law was first being debated there would have been a greater understanding of its impact on individuals and on industry itself.
The internet is an integral part of Swedish society today. The majority of the youth including myself have been instrumental in its growth and its place in our personal and professional lives. This is something I have always been extremely proud of. We are one Europe’s most connected nations.
Swedish politicians have clearly proved to me and many others with their recent actions that they are completely out of touch with today’s society. The Pirate Party has grown immensely recently. Every time issues regarding subjects such as file sharing, personal integrity or when our legal security has been compromised by private interests, The Pirate Party has stood up where others have not, and have been the voice we have needed. I feel this trend is set to continue and I am certain The Pirate Party’s support will continue to grow. The Pirate Party recieved 7.1% of the votes in the election, and will get 1 seat in the European Parliament. If the lissabon treaty goes through, it is possible that they will get a second seat.
In recent weeks in the run up to the elections other parties have begun to take notice of the support The Pirate Party is gaining with their agenda and have started adopting similar policies of their own. However, I feel they lack the understanding and the conviction that The Pirate Party has shown to me and many others in Sweden and across Europe.
I share the beliefs of The Pirate Party. Their goals to preserve our integrity and our security are fundamental issues to me and I feel it is extremely important that they are addressed now. When the Swedish government enacted the IPRED law they gave private interests the right to information that was previously reserved for the police and security services. This information is supposed to protect our rights and our privacy.
Private companies are being handed warrants to search and seize information on anyone they deem to be infringing upon their corporate agendas, such as suspected file sharers who have recently been very publicly targeted by the entertainment industry here in Sweden. File sharing has been an integral part of internet growth in Sweden and has been widely accepted by all as being part of everyday life. I feel the government has been influenced strongly by the private sector in such matters and have neglected the wishes of everyone else. Many people including myself are extremely dissatisfied and we feel we are being marginalised by the politicians and the private sector.
It is time we stood up and stopped allowing the private sector to dictate our politics. I believe The Pirate Party will do everything in the power to achieve this. That is why I joined them. They represent me and they understand my concerns.
Daniel Östlund
Pirate Party member
Pirate party – http://www.piratpartiet.se/
UK Election Day : 4 June 2009
Official vs.unofficial partnership with the EU institutions
Source : EurActiv [edited]
Please see the EuroElections add here : http://www.europarltv.europa.eu/YourVoice.aspx?action=view&PackageId=3aa717a9-86c7-48b6-af0d-3046a364b605
Online broadcaster YouTube and TV channel Euronews launched a new broadcasting service to “connect voters and candidates” ahead of next month’s European elections. ‘Questions for Europe’ is not the first time YouTube has hosted political messages. The White House, Queen Elizabeth II and 10 Downing Street all have official channels on the site, while YouTube has worked in partnership with local broadcasters for elections in Spain, Poland, Israel and New Zealand.
The ‘Questions for Europe’ projectexternal seeks to encourage candidates, constituents and experts “to engage in a dialogue through online video”. The project, which becomes active for the public later this week, primarily relies on user-generated content, inviting citizens to submit questions to candidate MEPs by uploading videos to a dedicated channel on YouTube, a popular online video community owned by US giant Google.
Euronews will broadcast a selection of the questions – and MEPs, think-tank representatives and other Brussels commentators’ answers to them – at the end of its half-hourly news bulletins, which reach 256 million households in 144 countries.
Echoes of MyBarackObama.com
The European Parliament and the EU executive already have their own YouTube channels, but Questions for Europe’s backers stressed that the new initiative was completely independent from the EU institutions’ preparations for the elections. “There is no official partnership with the EU institutions,” said Echikson, and “there is no official partnership with the candidates or political parties either,” added Euronews managing director and board member Michael Peters.
Asked what the motivation behind the project was, Echikson said “we remembered the Obama ‘Yes we can’ phenomenon, and thought, ‘Can we do this in Europe?’” “It’s too early to say whether this will take off like ‘Yes we can’. It’s an experiment. It’s something new,” he added. “The glossiest veneer isn’t always the most authentic in politics,” added Aaron Ferstman, director of political communications at YouTube. “Raw can be better sometimes, which is where YouTube comes in.”
‘Not a marketing exercise’
Refuting suggestions that the whole enterprise was simply a marketing exercise for all concerned, Peters said the project was “about giving concrete, professional answers to individual questions”. “It’s a question of educating people. We are trying to be a bit of a Wikipedia on the EU elections,” Peters said. “It’s about putting intelligent user-generated content on air.” “It’s also about having the right questions available at the right time when we’re interviewing MEPs. It’s not a question of using our partnership with YouTube in a marketing way,” he insisted.
Some observers present at yesterday’s launch suggested that the channel could become a Eurosceptic hub, as most public contributions to such initiatives tended to be anti-EU. “We’re not afraid of it becoming a Eurosceptic channel. We know that it will be mainly Eurosceptic, and we’re waiting for that. We need all points of view for it to be credible,” insisted Euronews’ Peters. “Please Eurosceptics, come to us,” he urged.
Positions:
“The upcoming European election will captivate European citizens and generate discussions from Portugal to Poland. Our news, online content, and soon YouTube videos in Euronews broadcasts all fuel impassioned political conversations,” said Michael Peters, managing director and a member of the board at Euronews.
“The Euronews-YouTube channel enables a global audience to delve into politics in a way that simply was not possible during the last [European] Parliamentary election,” said YouTube’s director of political communications, Aaron Ferstman. “In conjunction with Euronews, a leader in both television broadcasting and editorial programming, we are for the first time enabling voters from around the European Union to ask their potential future member of parliament a question in video form and hear the answer,” Ferstman continued. “One of the things that works most successfully for politicians is to upload frequently and be engaged,” he said. “YouTube can raise awareness of the EU elections. Many people don’t even know when the elections are, but everyone recognises the YouTube logo.”
European Health Insurance Card
Protection Of Cultural Heritage
Human rights throughout the world
What has Europe ever done for us?
Source: European Movement
The European Dream
source: Wise Enterprise
Nicolas Sarkozy “Turkey is not European!”
Got friends that are clichés from their countries? Joke about their characteristics…
Source: CafeBabel [Edited]
Got friends that are clichés from their countries? Joke about their characteristics… and win two nights accommodation for two in a five star hotel in Madrid!
How to play ‘Erasmus Stereotype’ and win two nights accommodation for two in a five star hotel in Madrid?
1 – Publish a picture of your buddy
1. Take a picture of a friend of yours
2. Upload it from your computer (size must be 280×280 pixels)
3. Confirm that you have the rights to publish this picture
4. Fill out the form about the person on the picture: country, sex
5. Write a title
6. Write a comment
7. Publish the picture and your text!
2 – Invite your friends to vote for your stereotype
Click on the ‘invite your friends’ button and ask your friends to vote for your picture. The more friends you invite, the closer you get to being a winner
3 – Vote for the best pictures!
Vote on other participants’ pictures and tell us you agree or disagree with the stereotypes: 1 star for 1 point, if you disagree with the stereotype 5 stars for 5 points, if you agree with the stereotype. Click the blue arrows to see the previous/ next picture Use the research tools to browse all the pictures by country, sex, most popular and lamest stereotype
4 – Win two nights accommodation in a five star hotel in Madrid
If your picture gets the highest score, you will win two nights in a five star hotel in Madrid for 2 people
This award is offered in conjunction with cafebabel.com’s partner, hotel.info
Editorial - Media and Communication in Europe: Babel Revisited (pp.269-272)Agnes Inge Schneeberger & Katharine Sarikakis
The special issue entitled “Media and Communication in Europe: Babel Revisited” is the outcome of a successful collaboration between the UACES Student Forum sponsored Specialist Study Group on Media and Communication in Europe (see http://ssg.x10hosting.com/ for more details) and the JCER | Journal of Contemporary European Research (http://www.jcer.net/ojs/index.php/jcer).
The origins for this special issue are to be found at the UACES Student Forum Conference in April 2007 at Nottingham University. The idea was put into practice with a first editorial meeting at the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds in December 2007. A preparatory thematic workshop at the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol followed in April 2008.
The Special Issue was guest edited by JMECE Lab member Mrs. Agnes I. Schneeberger and Dr Katharine Sarikakis, both of the Institute of Communication Studies at the University of Leeds. Contributors include early career researchers and postgraduate members of the Specialist Study Group. A special guest article was written by Dr Michael Bruter of the London School of Economics.
You are invited to review the Table of Contents below and then visit the web site to review articles and items of interest. Please note that FREE registration is required to allow access to the articles.
JCER | Journal of Contemporary European Research Vol 4, No 4 (2008): Special Issue – Media and Communication in Europe: Babel Revisited
Table of Contents http://www.jcer.net/ojs/index.php/jcer/issue/view/11
Editorial
Media and Communication in Europe: Babel Revisited (pp.269-272) Agnes Inge Schneeberger & Katharine Sarikakis
Guest Article
Legitimacy, Euroscepticism & Identity in the European Union ? Problems of Measurement, Modelling & Paradoxical Patterns of Influence (pp.273-285) Michael Bruter
Research Articles
“We have made Europe, now we have to make Europeans.” Researching European identity among Flemish Youths (pp.286-302) Petra Huyst
Minority Language Protection in Italy: Linguistic Minorities and the Media (p.303-321) Aline Sierp
Communities, Boundaries and New Neighbours: the Discursive Construction of EU Enlargement (pp.322-345) Giuditta Caliendo & Antonella Napolitano
Democracy and new media in the European Union: Communication or participation deficit? (pp.346-368) Asimina Michailidou
Book Reviews
Georgios Terzis (ed.) (2007). European Media Governance: National and Regional Dimensions. AND Georgios Terzis (ed.) (2008). European Media Governance: The Brussels Dimension. Bristol: Intellect Books. (pp.369.370) Patrick Bijsmans
Jackie Harrison and Lorna Woods (2007). European Broadcasting Law and Policy . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (pp.371-372) Oisín Tobin
Nico Carpentier et al. (2007). Media Technologies and Democracy in an Enlarged Europe: The Intellectual Work of the 2007 European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School. Tartu: Tartu University Press. (pp.373-375) Asimina Michailidou
Source: BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7830498.stm
The Czech EU presidency has apologised for an art installation it commissioned that lampoons national stereotypes.
- The Netherlands is shown as a series of minarets submerged by a flood – a possible reference to the nation’s simmering religious tensions.
Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised directly to Bulgaria, which has formally complained over its depiction as a toilet in the art work.
He said the image, at the European Council building in Brussels, would be removed if Sofia insisted.
David Cerny, the Czech artist behind the work, admits misleading officials over his intentions with the project.
He said he had “wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself”.
The Czech Republic thought it had commissioned work from 27 European artists for the Entropa display, which was installed at the weekend to mark the start of its six-month presidency.
But it turned out the work – an eight-tonne mosaic resembling a snap-out plastic modelling kit – was entirely completed by Mr Cerny and two associates.
‘No censorship’
At the official unveiling of Entropa on Thursday, the artwork “came to life”, emitting noises and flashing lights, to general applause – a sound not often heard in the EU Council building in Brussels, says the BBC’s Oana Lungescu in Brussels.
Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised to anyone who was offended by the work.
“I apologise to Bulgaria and its government if it feels offended, and I think we are certainly ready to engage in a dialogue,” he said, quoted by the AFP news agency.
- “If you stand by your request to remove it,” he told a Bulgarian diplomat at the ceremony, “of course we will certainly do that”.
Sofia summoned the Czech ambassador on Wednesday to complain.
“If you stand by your request to remove it,” he told a Bulgarian diplomat at the ceremony, “of course we will certainly do that”.
But he said the rest of the installation would stay. “We wanted to prove that 20 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, there is no censorship,” said the former Czech dissident.
But he refused to share the platform with the artist, who insisted his piece was in the European tradition of satire, like Monty Python and France’s Les Guignols. He also denied that the Lego entry for Denmark was a representation of one of the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that appeared in 2005.
As well as portraying Bulgaria as a toilet, Entropa depicts Romania as a Dracula theme-park and France as a country on strike.
The Netherlands is shown as a series of minarets submerged by a flood – a possible reference to the nation’s simmering religious tensions.
The Czech EU presidency has apologised for an art installation it commissioned that lampoons national stereotypes.
Germany is shown as a network of motorways vaguely resembling a swastika, while the UK – criticised by some for being one of the EU’s most Eurosceptic members – is absent from Europe altogether.
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