Pirates Entering European Parliament

According to applicable German law, a political party seeking admission to general elections needs to present names, addresses and signatures of a number of supporters who have to be citizens with the right to vote. In every Bundesland they need to collect up to 2.000 of such signatures upfront prior to be printed on the ballot sheet. Currently the German Pirate Party is struggling hard to fulfil this formal requirement, and in view of the media coverage to be expected in the aftermath of this EU Parliamentary election I would be surprised if they don't manage to get the formalities right.

In view of the general political habits of the Germans I don't expect the German Pirate Party to get over the 5% hurdle in the general elections in autumn later this year. Nevertheless, I guess that they will be a candidate for passing the 5% quorum in several local or state-level (Bundesland) elections during coming years, effectively duplicating the step-by-step success story of the Greens during 80s and 90s of the past century which had to succeed in a number of local or regional elections before they entered the German Parliament (Bundestag).

Contrary to the Swedish Pirate Party, the German branch appears not to follow their outright patent abolishment line: The German website explains that the German Pirate Party opposes patents on software and on biotechnological inventions but is silent on demands to abolish the entire patent system in its entirety.

The German Pirate Party has recently been boosted by an increasing Kulturkampf in German society exhibiting a number of politicians, journalists and writers questioning the benefits of the Internet in general and effectively demanding to curb the versatility thereof by hostile regulation including mandatory Internet filtering in support of certain structures and business models which had their heydays in the past century. Such populist political campaigning addressing fears and resentments of people alien to the Internet technology can currently be observed with representatives of virtually all of the established parties seated in German Bundestag, mostly with regard to some individuals of the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) as well as of the Social Democrats (SPD). Even the Greens might be not free of such temptations if certain concessions are percieved as a price for sharing power. Of course, such rhetoric does not go well with the generation of the Digital Natives, the main reservoir of voters for the Pirate Party.

There are reports saying that within the group of voters aged between 18 and 30 years of age the Swedish Pirate Party got a share of no less than 19%.

The more vigorous the forces of the 'ancien regime' will attack the habits, desires and political demands of the Digital Natives, thereby intending to save values, structures and business models of the 20^th century, the more the various branches of the Pirate Party will grow and prosper during the 21^st century.

[UPDATE 2009-06-08] The Swedish Pirate Party has won 7.1% of votes resulting in 1 (one) seat. The German Piratenpartei has won 0.9% of votes without a seat.