PPI Minutes 2020 05 30

Agenda PPI General Assembly

---30.05.2020 11:01 CEST ---

Zoom https://zoom.us/j/9303627084

Audio recording: PiratesOnAir Streaming, recording

Video: https://www.youtube.com/user/PiratePartiesInt https://piratesonair.net/live-stream/

Online Discourse link:http://ga.pp-international.net/

1 - ATTENDEES

1.1 - Ordinary Members of PPI

participating:

• Members of PPI

Pirate Party of Austria - present
Pirate Party of Belarus - absent
Pirate Party of Belgium - absent
Pirate Party of Brazil - present
Pirate Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina - absent
Pirate Party of Bulgaria - absent
Pirate Party of Catalonia  ½Vote  - absent
Pirate Party of Chile - Present
Pirate Party of the Czech Republic- present
Pirate Party of Estonia- absent
Pirate Party of France - present
Pirate Party of Germany - present
Pirate Party of Greece - absent
Pirate Party of Hungary - present
Pirate Party of Italy - present
Pirate Party of Israel - present
Pirate Party of Japan - absent
Pirate Party of Kazakhstan - absent
Pirate Party of Korea - absent
Pirate Party of Latvia - absent
Pirate Party of Luxembourg - absent
Pirate Party of Morocco - absent
Pirate Party of the Netherlands - present
Pirate Party of New Zealand ½Vote - absent
Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - present
Pirate Party of Norway - present
Pirate Party of Poland - present, 14:06 Absent
Pirate Party of Portugal - absent
Pirate Party of Romania - absent
Pirate Party of Russia - absent
Pirate Party of Slovakia ½Vote - absent
Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - present
Pirate Party of Slovenia- absent
Pirate Party of Spain ½Vote - absent
Pirate Party of Switzerland- absent (arrived at 12:45) absent
Pirate Party of Tunisia - absent
Pirate Party of Turkey - absent
Pirate Party of Ukraine- absent

We have 13 parties present at the role call that took place between 11:01 to 11:07. 11, full Votes, 2, 0.5 Votes. Switzerland arrived late, so we have 13 voting power.)

The following is the voting block

Pirate Party of Austria -
Pirate Party of Brazil 
Pirate Party of the Czech Republic 
Pirate Party of France 
Pirate Party of Germany
Pirate Party Hungary 
Pirate Party of Italy 
Pirate Party of Israel -
Pirate Party of the Netherlands
Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote
Pirate Party of Norway 
Pirate Party of Poland
Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote
Pirate Party of Switzerland

1.2 - Observer Members

• Internet Party of Serbia (POKRET NAPRED)
• Pirates without Borders
• Pirate Lobby, France
• Pirate Party of Berlin (Piratenpartei Berlin)
• Best Party Iceland (Besti Flokkurinn)
• Pirate Party of Bavaria
• Pirate Party of Hesse
• Pirate Party of La Rioja (Spain)
• Pirate Party of Lower Saxony
• Pirate Party of New York
• Pirate Party of North Rhine-Westfalia
• Pirate Party Potsdam
• europe beyond division e.V. Formerly: Young Pirates of Germany
• Young Pirates Sweden (Ung Pirat)
• Pirate Party of Tyrol (Austria)

1.4 - Applicants Participating

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/info-new-member-applications/236/2

For Ordinary Membership:

• Pirate Party of Chile

• Pirate Party of Japan

For Observing Membership:

• Piratenpartei Brandenburg

1.5 - Proceedings

RoP: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=Rules_of_procedure

Ga opened at 11:01 CEST by Bailey

Meeting chaired by Bailey and Gregory

Secretary for this meeting is Keith , Mike, Vojtech, MacBurns, and Bailey

Quorum established with 13 out of 35 members present. 12 voting power. quorum is 11,7 votes.

Streaming started: https://piratesonair.net/live-stream/Recording and [1]

Recording: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/players/G1ljflXO-WFicL1vq.html

Proposed Agenda

• https://ga.pp-international.net/t/preliminary-agenda/249

10:00 Zoom opens for last-minute registration:

11:00 Start of GA w/ opening Statements and roll call

11:30 Board Report

12:00 Finances report–treasurer, lay auditors, etc.

12:30 CoA Report

13:00 Break

13:15 New Member Applications

14:00 Statute Amendments

15:00 Break

15:30 Motions

16:30 Alternate board member replacement

17:00 Open discussion/member feedback/closing statements

• Are there any objections or suggested amendments to the agenda?

No objections were raised to the agenda.

Delegates accreditation

Pirate Party of Austria - Roland Schneider (aka Desertrold) 
Pirate Party of Brazil - Daniel Prazeres
Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - Vojtěch Pikal, Michal Gill, Lukáš Doležal 
Pirate Party of France - Cedric Levieux, Francois 
Pirate Party of Germany - Sebastian Krone, Michael John Sinclair
Pirate Party Hungary - Attila Bognár, Ferenc Gerse
Pirate Party of Italy - Marco Confalonieri, Eleonora Serrati, Edoardo Ferri 
Pirate Party of Israel - Keith Goldstein, Ohad Shem Tov, (Ohad Bar Siman Tov), Noam Kuzar
Pirate Party of the Netherlands - Ji Yong Dijkhuis, Henk Meijer
Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - Jo Booth
Pirate Party of Norway - Svein Mork Dahl, LindaTørklep
Pirate Party of Poland - Zbigniew Lukasiak
Pirate Party - Slovakia (newer one) ½Vote - Rudolf Molnar, Michal Pírek, Zuzana Krušinová, Peter Janiga, Filip Pastorek

Applicant Parties:
Pirate Party of Chile - Mauricio Vargas, Fernando Molina, Mauricio Salazar, Tomas Pizarro, Manuel Caicedo
Pirate Party of Japan - Hideto Suzawa

Opening of General Assembly

Bailey Lamon opening the GA at 11:00 AM CEST; roll call finished at 11:10, quorum reached with voting power of 12 with more than One Third of Membership(total ordinary members: 38 - one third 12.6).and members voting power (Total voting power: 35 - 11,66..) 11:11 Bailey L.: Welcome speech and some basic rules are being explained. This GA was supposed to take place February-ish; it's long overdue and finally happening. At the end of the day, discussions on groups should take place.

Announcement that we will have the Pirate Beer event after the GA.

Board Report

11:22 Bailey Lamon

Text of the report in Discourse: https://ga.pp-international.net/t/board-report-spring-2020/257

Bailey: "Since our last General Assembly in December 2019, the PPI board along with our members have been very busy with activities and projects that we hope will benefit the Pirate movement long-term.

The board currently meets every 3 weeks on Discord. We also hold online socials known as 'Pirate Beer' every 3 weeks which is a fun, agendaless online gathering for all Pirates. This is in addition to a number of standing committee meetings with specific discussion topics, sometimes resulting in projects and initiatives. The idea behind the standing committees is to get Pirates talking to each other about how they do their work, what they require in terms of international support and the role that PPI can play in that work. One of our 'big questions' as a board and something we try to keep in mind at all times is 'what is our purpose?', in other words, how PPI can practically benefit our members, and what do our members need that we can possibly provide. The standing committees have been particularly helpful in understanding this.

1) Standing Committee on Universal Liason on Party Labour (SCULL)

This is the standing committee that focuses on inter-party cooperation and getting people from different parties who do particular kinds of work talking to each other and colaborating. The first SCULL meeting focused on IT, while the 2nd focused on graphics and design. Two major things came from these meetings:

   --> Participants came to an agreement that PPI should be providing more IT support to members, including 'tech packages' that include website hosting, a mail server, and a set of basic tools that are popular among Pirates (ex. Mumble, Etherpad). This is something that can and should be provided to new Pirate Parties who want them as well as any Pirates who could use that support. We developed a much better understanding of our technological capabilities with ISPconfig and we learned that we can already provide these things, it just was not well-known before. 
   --> An idea was brought to us at the graphics and design meeting to set up a PPI grapics vault for members to store and share their graphics with each other. After lots of debate around how to go about that, we agreed to use Nextcloud for this and a server was set up: https://nextcloud.ppi.rocks/login?redirect_url=/apps/files/?dir%3D/%26fileid%3D70621. All Pirates are welcome to register there and hook up their own Nextcloud servers to ours so it is a more federated setup. The idea is to make it possible for you to share whatever you want easily while also having control over what gets shared and with whom. 
   

We had hosted two meetings of SCULL so far.

2) Standing Committee on External Networking Engagement (SCENE)

This standing committee focuses on public relations, campaigning and media work in the Pirate movement. We learned a lot about how our members conduct this work, and we looked at three open-source tools that PPI would like to provide for our members to assist them in it:

     -->Superdesk - a Press Newsroom https://www.superdesk.org/
                     -can be used for creating, publishing and distributing content...essentially a place for press teams to work together
                     -open source
     -->Socioboard - a social media management software https://socioboard.org/
                     -you can have multiple people on there posting content and monitoring channels
                     -includes social media analytics 
                     -open source
     -->Piwigo - Imagebank for sharing pictures with press and providing a repository for internal authors. https://piwigo.org/
                     -store photos, organize them, etc.
                     -useful for when journalists want to write about us, we know where to find good press photos such as from conferences, rallies, etc.
                     -open source
                     

3) Standing Committee on Usual Requisitions of Various Yields (SCURVY)

This committee is centered around finances and best financial practices around things such as membership fees, budgeting, fundraising, etc. It has met one time and is supposed to meet twice a year.

4) Standing Committee on United Nations Bureaucratic Activities (SCUBA)

This is the ECOSOC committee that focuses on United Nations work such as submitting statements to the UN about various topics as well as coordinating PPI participation in UN events. PPI has submitted 3 statements and participated in various UN events since our last meeting in December. All events are online at the moment. 1) We submitted a statement and registered for the big Commission for Social Development at UNHQ. 2) We submitted a statement for the Global Leadership Conference at UNOG in June. 3) We submitted a statement for the UN High Level Political Forum UNHLPF. PPI has submitted publications and made statements at UN events every year since we became ECOSOC members in 2017.

We have registered for attendance in the IGF Forum 2020 in Poland this autumn, we have registered a booth in the exhibition village and a workshop session on Digital Souverenity as a new Human Right. We are also registered to participate and submit a statement to the 12th WTO ministerial conference that was scheduled for the middle of June 2020, but it is likely to be moved to next year.

We are currently registered in Brussels as an AISBL (PPI HQ). The AISBL is an not for profit organisation and we got it accreddited with Techsoup and have through it access to a whole lot of rebated services for nonprofits (including lesser fees for PayPal, Google Ad Grants, etc). A few years back there was an idea to possibly move PPIHQ to Geneva, Switzerland, but this did not happen and we are interested in hearing what our members think about this issue. Do we stay in Brussels and leave it at that, or do we look into the possibility of moving to Geneva like previously planned? The NGO is a factual association (Verein) in Switzerland, which comes de facto of registering a bank account there. Our bank account is registered there, because the bank account in Belgium was frozen and numerous attempts to regain access failed. What we have not done is register with the Canton of Geneva as an NGO, which we considered doing because it might enable funding opportunities. However, we were not able to fully navigate the bureacracy to this point.

Another thing we are doing is building a closer relationship with PPEU. We recently had a joint meeting between the PPI and PPEU boards. We all agreed that we are two international organizations with a lot of the same desires and goals for the movement, but we serve different purposes and there is a need to define our individual as well as collective purposes more clearly. There will be more discussions between PPI and PPEU with the goal of building a closer and more collaborative, mutually-beneficial relationship.

Additionally we recently published a Needs Assessment Survey which we plan to put on the PPI website for ongoing use. Members and non-members alike are welcome to fill it out anytime and let us know what your needs are and what we can do to better support you in your work. We hope to share some insights from the Needs Assessment thus far later on in the GA. We also would like to share the needs assessment link with you all here. If you haven't filled out one, please try to do so today during one of the breaks: https://lime.ppi.rocks/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=667442

Think Twice Conference - We have decided to cancel it for this year.

Gregory: Pirate Summer camp is still on and is now two weeks - July 12th to 28th in Pietrowice Nyskie in Poland. Poland dropped the quarantine on arrival and most EU countries should drop their travel bans by June 15th. But in these times, all dates are just "working hypotheses". We hope to bring the attendance up to max 50 in order to be able to maintain physical distance between participants.

Finances Report

11:48 Bailey Lamon: We want to get online access to our bank account. We did not have access. Gregory and Bailey have been added on with Pat Maechler to have online access and be financially transparent. Recently, Gregory has succeeded in receiving a calculator that enables us to access our account. Due to the COVID situation, Bailey has had trouble with the mail to receive an official token (She blames the Canadian Postal Service), so Gregory and Pat have access to our account. We can only look at the amounts, not release funds. In order to release funds they all need to have tokens, which they do not now. We do have read access, and we have 2,950 Swiss Francs. 1,500 Francs are from the Czech Pirate Party, which are designated for the Think Twice conference in Prague, and so in reality we only have about half the amount that is in the bank. This money would need to be returned if we do not establish the conference. Belgian registration became problematic, and we lost access to the Belgian bank account. We have tried to contact people to look into this, but we have no further updates. There are not responses from the people who held access to the account, but we will keep trying.

The next step is to send out invoices for membership fees. Membership fees are voluntary. You will not lose your membership if you cannot pay. If you can pay, it is a huge help.

Daniel Prazeres is treasurer. You will receive mail from Dan with the invoices.

Gregory Engels: Regarding the invoices, only a couple of parties paid 2018 or 2019 fees. There is only a handful of countries that pay. There seems to be a problem with payment morale.

Keith Goldstein: We need to do more to promote individual memberships, as we also have a contingency of individual members.

Bailey: The SCURVY meetings are important for this. Please participate in SCURVY

Michael: Individual membership is very important. It should be as inclusive as possible, because some people don't have a party in their country. Also observer status should be used more, and a way to make the party more inclusive.

Desertrold: What is the amount of money that we need in a year? How much to keep things running? How much more money would we need to do further activities?

Jo: What is the budget?

Bailey: The main cost would be tech, and our tech team has not sent us any invoices because they know that we do not have the funds that the services would require. So, things are running because the tech team is amazing and wants to run things for us. It depends on what we want to do, how much additional funds would be needed.

Linda: A travel budget would be great, but we are a very online digital party. When COVID-19 is over, there are a lot of delegates that would like to travel to the UN to present on behalf of PPI. Also, if they would like to be able to invite people to exchange visits between parties and the board, this would be a great source of funds. If there was a crowdsourcing and crowdfunding source that could support our members and memberships.

CoA Report

Bailey: We do not have anyone from the Court of Arbitration but I can give you a quick rundown: the CoA is working, they'll give the report later in the year. They're staffed and working on a case.

• 12:10 - Break

12:22 - end of the break

New Member Applications

Bailey: We have three applications this time. From Chile, Japan and one observer application from PP Brandenburg. So let's start with Chile. All required information was submitted and is on Discourse.

Mauricio Vargas (PP Chile): We started as a group a few years ago. We're working slowly. In the last three years we started to work with other political groups here in Chile. For a time we worked with a group that even have some parlamentarians before they broke. Now Chile is trying to change its constitution and the government response is mostly oppression. The PP's work is now therefore focused on these issues. That's why we started to work with the PPI to try and enforce the parties here in Latin America.

Vojtěch Pikal: Chile is working with some elected officals; how many members do you have and what capacities did you already estabblished as a political party?

MauricioThey are working to become established as a party. It is very difficult. They are trying to start with this process. They have about 100 members. The people who are more active are about 17. There are 15 regions in the country and it is very long geographically. Some groups are small, others can have 30 people. We're not a big force but steadily growing. We're working with a lot of legal forces in the country.

F. Molina: The coalition we were participating in broke up last year. Right now we're regrouping; we're working with two groups. In Chile it is very hard to legalise a party; one needs 100 members and they one has 270 days to gather at least 500 members + some regional rules. You need a lot of hard (not online) signatures, so the climate is against new parties. In our registry we have 300 members, but active we have about 70. Next week we have our General Assembly and making an update of these numbers. Like Mauricio said: Chile is very long and narrow; it's hard to cooperate inter-regionally. It takes time.

Bastian: Do you expect in any help from the PPI. Can it help in any way?

Mauricio: We mainly want to collaborate and work together. To get international network to co-operate. We can build a very strong Pirate movement around the world.

F. Molina: In Chile the Pirate movement isn't known at all; the media usually think we're a joke. We make them google our European counterparts and the PPI to make them believe. Last October the human rights issues went south and to be a member of the PPI would've helped us a lot back then, to be recognised.

Vojtěch Pikal: With ordinary membership there's an expectation to pay some small mebership fee. Are you prepared to pay it?

Mauricio: Yes, we are. We really want to be an ordinary member, responsibilities included.

Bailey: As of now, the fee would be pretty low.

Michael: You have a lot of similarities to the Pirate Party India. Is it possible to run perhaps for a mayor even if one is not a registered party:

Mauricio: We do not have more than the main parliament. Every party can be either whole-country or a regional one. Some regional parties have parlamentarians.

F. Molina: We're not a federal country. We only have two chambers and that's it. We have one council member in San Miguel working with us. We need to grow on that level; it's easier to gather signatures this way.

Michael: Do you have any seats in local councils or are there mayoral elections like they do in India?

F. Molina: We're working with a single council member from San Miguel and we had one in Valparaiso but got fired due to some political struggle. We're trying to get at least a seat in a city council and get some positions. San Miguel (where I'm from) is our best bet as of now.

Ordinary Member Applicants

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/info-new-member-applications/236

Application as Ordinary Member of PPI for Pirate Party of Chile

Do we accept Pirate Party of Chile as ordinary members of PPI?

• Pirate Party of Austria - yes
• Pirate Party of Brazil - yes
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - yes
• Pirate Party of France - abstain
• Pirate Party of Germany - yes
• Pirate Party Hungary - yes
• Pirate Party of Italy - yes
• Pirate Party of Israel - yes
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party of Norway - yes
• Pirate Party of Poland - yes
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party Switzerland - yes

14 members with 13 votes on the voting list; 12 votes yes, 1 abstains

By proposal of Vojtěch Pikal: all new members will get their voting rights after all the new parties are accepted.

Point of order that we should include new members in the tally after confirming the new members so as to avoid having the order of acceptance being applicable.

Motion
Do we accept Pirate Party of Chile as ordinary members of PPI?
*
Yes : 12
No : 0
Abstain : 1
Result: Motion passed, Pirate Party of Chile is now a Member

Application as Ordinary Member of PPI for Pirate Party of Japan

https://www.facebook.com/ppj.tunagari

Keith: There are two parties in Japan that do not get along.

Carlos Polo: It would be useful to have someone from the party here.

Keith: I was trying to be in touch with both PP in Japan; the one that already is a member is not really meeting or willing to share information. The one currently asking for memberships is the exact opposite and I've been to their meetings.

Gregory: As far as I recall, in 2015 or before, we received this application but afterwards they have been changes in the wiki to the application. In the end we had somebody from them visiting the GA in Paris and they basically hijacked the Suzawa's PP. I'm not sure whom did we actually admit in Paris. Do you, Keith, know about them.

Keith: They do their activities solely on FB and YT.

Roland: Do we know why they do not get along?

Gregory: Probably becuse of the application hijacking. Once we had reps from both parties present and they have been shouting at one another.

Linda: I have two concerns. For one they're not present. For two, if they do not speak English, how will they participate within PPI in any meaningful way.

Marco: I browsed the documents and they're a bit murky. Is Mr. Shimazaki a member of this party? It doesn't really seem regular according to our rules. It seems cryptical.

Carlos: There'S a lot of insecurities about this.

Linda: I propose postponement of this until we know more. Do we have to vote?

Gregory: We can vote to postpone.

Keith: I can't represent them entirely. One group does not have any public presence while this one works very publically.

Carlos: Keith feels good about them but ... (didn't understand)

Linda: I've made a motion to postpone. Since they're not here, they don't really show much interest.

Bastian: We might want to accept them as an observer member.

Carlos: Second.

Vojtěch: Unless they applied for observer membership, we can't vote on that.

Marco: We can give them whatever status we deem appropriate.

Carlos: We can keep them as observer members and resolve it next time.

Linda: We need to formally decide.

Michael: One party in Japan is already a member. I would put the older party to the observer status as well.

Bastian: It makes no problem if we keep them as observer member. I ask for a vote on that.

Marco: If the options are just to postpone or give them observer membership, then I ask whether someone still considers their full membership?

Vojtěch: To lower the member status to observer is in the hands of the CoA.

Roland: We can either postpone or vote on the status.

Vojtěch: the original proposal is for sull membership; procedural one to postpone and counterproposal to vote on observer membership. So let's vote in order: observer - full - postpone

Linda: My motion is purely to postpone.

Bastian: I made a procedural motion to make a straw poll between postponement, observer status and full membership. It will show us what to vote on. We can do that quickly.

Roland: What are we voting on exactly?

Bailey: Do we prefer to grant observer membership, to postpone or to grant full membership?

Gregory: Strawpoll is a procedural motion that shall be carried ASAP, it's not a vote, it's just collecting opinions.

Cédric (writing directly into minutes, without speaking): many things

- it's our fault, to let the problem occured. A wiki is not a tool to administrate thing, we need to apologize - we are in a GA. We have the ultimate power, we can change our statutes, we can revoke what we want, right now, even people proposed motion during the last hour. Saying "we can't", it's a way to avoid things. - we accept a non-organization, right now, without problem, and now we have some problems with remove membership to a non-present member.

Do we want to vote for Pirate Party of Japan as ordinary members, observer members, or postpone the vote of PPI?

Discussion that we can remove the discussion of ordinary membership, and we cannot reduce the membership of a party only the COA can do this.

Strawpoll: Do you prefer to 1) grant them observer membership, or do you want to 2) postpone the decision, or to grant them 3) ordinary membership today: 3 "OR" Options:

• Pirate Party of Austria - 1
• Pirate Party of Brazil - 1
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - 1
• Pirate Party of France - 2
• Pirate Party of Germany - 1
• Pirate Party Hungary - abstain
• Pirate Party of Italy - 1
• Pirate Party of Israel - 1
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands - 1
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - 1
• Pirate Party of Norway - 2
• Pirate Party of Poland - not voting
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - 1
• Pirate Party Switzerland - 1

9 in favor of the first option. 2 in favor of postponing, 1 abstention, and 1 not voting.

We will vote on whether to accept PP Japan as an observer member? Yes, No, Abstain

Do we want to vote for Pirate Party of Japan as observer members or postpone the vote of PPI?

• Pirate Party of Austria - yes
• Pirate Party of Brazil - yes
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - yes
• Pirate Party of France - abstain
• Pirate Party of Germany - yes
• Pirate Party Hungary - abstain
• Pirate Party of Italy - yes
• Pirate Party of Israel - yes
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party of Norway - no
• Pirate Party of Poland - not voting
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party Switzerland - yes

14 Members with 13 votes in the voting list, 9 yes, 1 no, 2 abstain, 1 not present

Yes=9
No=1
Abstain=2
Not voting=1

Motion
Do we accept Pirate Party of Pirate Party of Japan as observer member.
*
Yes : 9
No : 1
Abstain : 2
Result: Motion passed, PP Japan is now an observer member

Pirate Party of Japan has been awarded observer membership.

Observer Member Applicants

Application as observer member of PPI for Piratenpartei Brandenburg

Bastian: We are part of the PP Germany, local organisation Brandenburg; it's easy to follow us and we follow you. All is in our application form. I'll be short since there's little time.

Bailey: Any questions?

Linda: Brandenburg was granted observer status of the PPEU just last weekend.

Bailey: Let's vote!

• Pirate Party of Austria - abstain
• Pirate Party of Brazil - yes
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - yes
• Pirate Party of France - no
• Pirate Party of Germany - Yes
• Pirate Party Hungary - abstain
• Pirate Party of Italy - yes
• Pirate Party of Israel - yes
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party of Norway - yes
• Pirate Party of Poland - not present
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party Switzerland - yes

14 Members with 13 votes in the voting list, 9 yes, 1 no, 2 abstain, 1 not present

Motion
Do we accept Piratenpartei Brandenburg as observer members of PPI?
*
Yes : 9
No : 1
Abstain : 2
Result: Motion passed, PP-DE-BB is now an observer member

Piratenpartei Brandenburg is an official observer member of PPI.

Break

13:30 - Break
14:00 - end of the break
14:01 Gregory reopens

Reestablish a quorum:

PPI Has 39 Ordinary Members with 36 votes Required voting power present: 12 Required members present:13

• PPCZ: procedural motion to reacess the quorum:

Pirate Party of Austria - present
Pirate Party of Belarus - absent
Pirate Party of Belgium - absent
Pirate Party of Brazil - present
Pirate Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina - absent
Pirate Party of Bulgaria - absent
Pirate Party of Catalonia  ½Vote  - absent
Pirate Party of Chile-present
Pirate Party of the Czech Republic- present
Pirate Party of Estonia- absent
Pirate Party of France - present
Pirate Party of Germany - present
Pirate Party of Greece - absent
Pirate Party of Hungary - present
Pirate Party of Italy - present
Pirate Party of Israel - present
Pirate Party of Japan - absent
Pirate Party of Kazakhstan - absent
Pirate Party of Korea - absent
Pirate Party of Latvia - absent
Pirate Party of Luxembourg - absent
Pirate Party of Morocco - absent
Pirate Party of the Netherlands - present
Pirate Party of New Zealand ½Vote - absent
Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - present
Pirate Party of Norway - present
Pirate Party of Poland - absent
Pirate Party of Portugal - absent
Pirate Party of Romania - absent
Pirate Party of Russia - absent
Pirate Party of Slovakia ½Vote - absent
Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - present
Pirate Party of Slovenia- absent
Pirate Party of Spain ½Vote - absent
Pirate Party of Switzerland- absent
Pirate Party of Tunisia - absent
Pirate Party of Turkey - absent
Pirate Party of Ukraine- absent

we need 12 votes from 13 members - we have 12 votes from 13 members -. quorum is established.

Switzerland and Poland may return.

Statute Amendments

https://ga.pp-international.net/c/online-ga-may-2020/statutes-amendments/20

• Current PPI statutes can be found here: https://pp-international.net/about-ppi/statutes-of-ppi/

• PPI Discourse Page for Amendments: https://ga.pp-international.net/t/info-statute-amendments/234/6

Links are provided for every motion/amendment. 1) Setting up a Permanent Assembly - https://ga.pp-international.net/t/amendements-setting-up-a-permanent-assembly/241/20

2) Voting week - https://ga.pp-international.net/t/amendement-voting-week/242/4

3) Clearer composition and elections of the Board - https://ga.pp-international.net/t/amendement-clearer-composition-and-elections-of-the-board/239/3

Suspension-of-the-normal-functioning

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/motion-suspension-of-the-normal-functioning/200/11

This is the old motion. It has been replaced with the setting up a permanent assembly. The motion has been withdrawn.

Setting up a permanent assembly

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/amendements-setting-up-a-permanent-assembly/241

Etienne

The voting week motion is an alternative to this motion. There is a discussion about whether we should discuss both of them and then have a vote, which is what we decided to do.

This is designed to set up a structure for PPI, whereby a permanent assembly would exist. This would encourage more participation from members. It is also a way to have more direct democracy. There are 2 parts, the statutes and the role of proceedure aspects. The purpose is to set up the principle of sessions, whereby we will have a calendar with numerous sessions over a year and clear dates for submitting motions. There are also new competencies for the board. There are also new details, with more clear competencies. The PPIHQ is consolidated. There are several amendments, associated with suggestions from the Czech party. We agree with all of them, but we outlined them for a vote.

Voting week

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/amendement-voting-week/242

:Desertrold.

There has been an issue with voting. We looked at the PPFR proposal and considered it to be too much of a rewrite, so this is a modest proposal for a voting week, a 6 week processs for decisions to be made. This option would ensure that the problem with getting a GA to make a vote is avoided. It is a simple. It is a counter proposal. We do not believe having a permanent GA is ideal for PPI.

Vojtěch: This change is unnecessary. It can be easily done as a simple change to the rules of procedure. We have no need of this in the statutes.

Linda: My question would be whether do we need to have a technical solution or shall we just vote on the intention?

Marco: My question is: will this process be used for regular motions or for all motions?

Roland: It has the same power as the GA, so both. To reply to Vojtěch: statutes say there's an option for extraordinary GA which voting week can be considered as. I just want to clarify by putting voting week into statutes.

Clearer composition and elections of the board

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/amendement-clearer-composition-and-elections-of-the-board/239

Link to PPCZ amendment : https://ga.pp-international.net/t/amendements-setting-up-a-permanent-assembly/241/13?u=etienne

Link to PPFR amendment : https://ga.pp-international.net/t/amendements-setting-up-a-permanent-assembly/241/20?u=etienne

Vojtěch: It's a series of six technical changes. FIrst is to establish rotation system of board elections so it doesn't get broken. Then there is specification that all board members are truly board members (incl. treasurer and such). Then the board can create offices and not positions. It can establish other position - we already have committees. Finally with the alternate board members I removed the word four so the list is unlimited. Also the length of their term is clarified.

Bastian: Where is the exact text on Discourse?

Vojtěch: It's all in the first entry there. The original text was amended multiple times.

Gregory: The vote for the rules of procedure for a permanent GA will be decided after the statute amendments. Do we have a suggestion how to vote on them, can we vote on all three of them concurrently?

Vojtech: I am ok with us voting first on Etienne's motion, and then voting on the following motion. Or we can try some sort of concurrent decision.

Etienne: I think the best solution is to go through each of the amendments, because amendments in the motion are dependent on each following vote. We can then see if the third vote is necessary.

Gregory: We cannot vote alone on the first one, perhaps according to rules of procedure.

Vojtěch: Yes, but before we do that, there are little changes to be voted on.

Roland: The votes are concurrent. We need to vote on them together.

Bastian: To avoid confusion I recommend that we have the exact text to vote on in the minutes.

Vojtěch: We support Etienne's motion if some of PPCZ's changes are incorporated. But the real change isn't rooted in our statutes but in our activity and the tools we use.

Macburns: Concern that there are people and not parties that are making these decisions, which is why he proposes having only individual membership. PPI is viewed as the Pirate movement as itself. We have many complicated structures, and I would like to see it simplified and easier for people to join. They have problems, and there is no goal of joining a world parliament because it does nto exist. We've copied the national level model, and it is not real. Individual membership is really important.

Gregory: This is not a statute amendment. We can discuss it more later. It is not off the table, but we are not on it yet. We will come back to it later. Changes proposed to the French Proposal, are they incorporated?

Etienne: The link is on the agenda. I put the link to the complimentary motion of the PPCZ; we just need to copy/paste it.

Marco: A question for Vojtěch and Etienne: how do you see the impact of participation of members on your amendments. We have already trouble reaching quorum. How would a low participation impact functioning of the PPI?

Etienne: This motion would help less active members to participate more.

Roland: I don't fully understand the permanent assembly and how it works. If Vojtěch could elaborate.

Etienne: The purpose of the motion is to allow more debate. We will need to think of another way of working. You can see what we did last week, where we exchanged opinions with Vojtech. The purpose is to duplicate this way of working to all of PPI's activities. This will allow our members to take an hour or two to review the materials, and not just to do it in one day. Also, this will provide us a full week of voting. This way people can organize their time more easily. You can go through the motion and just do it once when it is set up for debate. So, if you don't have a lot of time, you will have more time, and it will make better conditions for reading the motions. The goal is to create more time for doing better work.

Roland: I don't get how this improves us, because we have Discourse, but still people are not taking advantage entirely. Do I have to participate for weeks? How does the proceedure take place, because I don't understand it.

Etienne. The board has 2 weeks to propose. Then there is a period of debate. We need time, so the proposal is to have time. At the end of the debate, we will have a meeting like this. After the debate phase , we will have one week to vote and time to ask our members. Time for better thinking on the subject we vote on.

Vojtěch: What will this do with inactive members. Kinda nothing. I have several proposals to suspend as many inactive members as possible. [2] Secondly, to this proposal; asynchronous meetings are better; we (PPCZ) have over thousand members and hundreds of elected reps; we do this on the lowest level (every member). There are rules but it works well. There's plenty of time to go over the motion and read them. First we need to discuss support for motions.

Linda: I don't see any discernable difference. On Discourse, anyone can discuss the motions and then we meet up and vote. I don't see any difference. This is what we are doing already.

Roland: I still don't see any advantages. Some things seem scheduled in, but then you are neglecting the people element. This is not a 500 person party, where you always have people available. But we have to recognize that our participants are more limited, and we struggle to make quorum. The quorum for motions to be discussed, then there needs to be a lot of support. Now, I just file a motion and that's it.

Mike: What Vojtech means is something like the Czech system. First you must get support for a proposed motion (on a platform such as Discourse), and then it can be voted on and sent out. This is how the Czech PP works at every level.

Vojtech: To avoid confusion, my motion is something that would benefit us because it would reduce the amount that we vote on unnecessary things. It would also generate more people voting and participating than we have now. Regarding the requirement for discussion, that is something that is required. Most of the discussion would happen. I don't think it is necessary to have the requirement for the specific number of people present.

Francois: To answer to Linda: the difference is that with the changes you cannot discuss or make changes once it is done. Once the week is over you cannot make changes, so there are no last minute proposals. Everything is dissected. You have a quick meeting to say these are the motions and bring your debate face. You have a week or two to debate. You know you have that time to make amendments to the text. You are still at liberty, but it is more structured and mandatory.

Linda: I am simple. Statute amendments are like code. That is what it looks to me in writing. When I read the discussion, I do not grasp fully what they are trying to explain. So for me, I am completely dependent on the discussion where people explain the amendment in normal words. Even while following the discussion on Discourse, I don't understand. It is necessary to have meetings where people explain the motions to me.

Bastian: You can do what you want, and if you would like to have a lof discussions, it is not binding. The decisions are made in the assembly. I don't think we need to change any statute amendments, because you can do these things anyway. If we have another tool that we can use before a GA that's great.

Etienne: I understand your concerns. Some people may have difficulties with a written debate. What we are proposing, is that we are concerned that people who bring technical details can do so before. There are boring details. I think it is important that we have a proper presentation with Q and A to provide better understanding. The concern is to do it before. When we have written debates, I believe that you will want to participate in it.

Vojtech: There are no stupid questions only stupid answers.

Roland: Does it work then that we can't change motions after debating? I think that we don't have a problem with voting week, like this. We can state that there is a week. I don't know if I can agree about the support. How do we measure support? Can you provide more info about how that works?

Mike regarding the support for the motion, with the Czech party we have an issue that if you want a motion passed where people go, just like Discourse, and in the current way you need support of a specific number of people active who go and check it out. I think the goal is to just move forward, and I don't think discussions like this are progressing in a positive way. If it is on Discourse, then people look at them in advance. A lot of people don't look at them in advance, then I think there is a problem that people don't get what their about, and then all of the discussion is left in the GA and it doesn't really work.

Keith: I really want to try it but my concern is that it might not work; I'd prefer to try it and then put it into our statutes. Let's try it and we already have some input from within our individual parties. Even one member already has support for the motion from their own party and that should be enough.

Gregory: A technical change from article 5 that reads that countermotions are allowed in the debate phase. We have a regulation that there cannot be complicated countermotions that would destroy a motion. We don't need to make a change there, because this rule exists.

Roland: Just a short answer: We're on the Internet, the discussion should have happened there but it didn't. I'm asking for as long as I know what I'm voting on.

Etienne: It's like 90% of rewriting and 10% of details to have a system for the GA. If we're already doing it now, the proposal is to formalise the current system to meet more often. Maybe this will be a total mess; maybe a big success we wait for for years. I think like all the rules we can change the rules of procedures really simply. We agree we need to meet more often. Maybe we need a few sessions to see if it's working. It's a gamble, let's late it and see.

Linda: You say you want more contact amongst us - that's why we made the needs assessment form. We already have the standing committees which meet often. Maybe time will bring what you're looking for without scary changes to the statutes.

Gregory: We'll be voting on the Czech amendments to the French proposal:

Vojtěch: Can we incorporate the Czech amendments straight into the French proposal without voting on them?

Gregory: If Etienne agrees...

Etienne: Yes, if my last change from the latest note in the Discourse discussion is added as well. We might take a quick break to finish the text?

Gregory: Proposal from Austria that is in concurrence. We will need to vote after the votes are incorporated, and then which of the two proposals we favor. Then we will vote on which of the proposals shall go on for a vote.

Break until 15:25 to figure out the correct text. The next vote will be on the concurrent proposals.

14:30 Meeting slowly restarts with ongoing revisions of the wording for voting.

Point of order that PP Hungary had to leave.

Keith:If any other parties need to leave then they should delegate another country or person to serve as their proxy. We are still good with quorum though.

PP-FR original proposal amended by PP-CZ:

Article 1 : General Assembly
    I) The article IX. General Assembly is rewritten as follow:
(1) The General Assembly is the supreme body of Pirate Parties International and is composed of all the Members of that association.
(2) The General Assembly is competent to :
a) Establish the policies and political orientation of the association
b) Vote on the application for membership and exclusion of members
c) Elect Board members, Court of Arbitration members and Lay auditor
d) Vote on amendments to the Statutes
e) Addopt its Rules of Procedure
f) Approve any internal regulations of the Association, where it deems necessary.
(3) Once a year, the General Assembly votes on :
a) The report of the Board and the Treasurer
b) The report of the Court of Arbitration
c) The report of the Lay Auditor
d) The budget for the next year
e) The calendar of the sessions for the next year
(4) The Board, the Court of Arbitration, Committees and Members can present report and recommendations to the General Assembly. If the General Assembly approves the report or the recommendations, the Board is charged executed them with the help of other organ of the association if required.
II) The article X. Functions of the General Assembly is renamed “Functionning of the General Assembly” and is rewritten as follow:
(1) The General Assembly is organized in sessions. There is at least one session per year.
(2) The Rules of procedure defines :
a) deadlines for each phases of the session
b) debates procedures
c) procedure for proxy
d) voting procedures
e) any rule necessary for the running of sessions of the General Assembly which are not provided for in these statutes
(3) The quorum is fixed at one third of the Ordinary Members counted for each vote
(4) Member Organizations are represented at any session of the General Assembly by a delegate or delegates not exceeding six from any one Member Organization.
Article 2 : Board
I) The article XII. Board is rewritten as follow:
(1) The Board assures the good management of the association, its administrative, financial and legal governance, the intern life animation and the external relations. The Board is the executive organ of the association.
(2) The functions of the Board are:
a) to act on behalf of the General Assembly according to its instructions and to give effect to its decisions, recommendations and policies,
b) Publish the agenda, promulgate the results, and transcribe them on the dedicated platforms, and appoint the Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson of the General Assembly meeting according to the Rules of Procedure,
c) to represent the association at international and national events,
d) to advise and assist Member Organizations,
e) to ensure the financial management of the association including preparing and executing budget,
f) to keep the register of members in accordance with applicable legal obligations
g) to exercise other functions resulting from these Statutes or decisions of General Assembly.
(3) The Board is composed of:
a) one Chairperson,
b) one Vice-Chairperson,
c) one Treasurer
c) seven additional Board Members
(4) If the Chairperson, Vice-chairperson or Treasurer position is vacant, the Board elects among its members an acting person until the next session of the General Assembly.
(5) If a seat is vacant, a vote is held at the nearest General Assembly session to fill it. If the delay between the beginning of the vacancy and the next session and that the efficiency of the Board requires it, the Board may appoint an acting person to this seat.
(6) After each Board election, the Board establishes for each of its members a position description indicating the missions within the organization for which he will be a referent.
(7) The Board Members is elected for two years renewed by half by the General Assembly during the last session of the year. The Rules of Procedures specify the modalities of this alternating election.
II) The article XIII. Functions of the Board is renamed “Functioning of the Board” and is rewritten as follow:
(1) The Board shall meet regularly and not less than once a quarter and every time that these Statutes or Rules of Procedure requiere it.
(2) The Board meetings are public unless at least one third of the Members of the Board vote in favor of a non-public meeting. The decision to hold a non-public meeting must be justified. Minutes of public meetings have to be published on the appropriate platform.
(3) A Board member may resign at any moment.
(4) A seat is vacant when :
a) A board member resigns
b) A board member dies
c) A board member has a long term disease that prevents it to assume its position
d) A board member does not execute its functions for more than two months
(5) If the seat has neither become vacant by resignation nor death of the Board Member the remaining Board Members have to declare the seat as vacant by majority vote.
(6) The Board establishes its own Rules of Procedure.
III) The article VIII. Membership Register is deleted
IV) The article XIV. PPI Headquarters (4) is rewritten as follow:
(4) The administrative, financial and legal managements of the PPI Headquarters is the responsibility of the Board. The budget of the PPI Headquarter is included in the Budget of the association.
Article 3 : Transitionary rules
(1) This reform of the articles of association is applicable immediately after the General Meeting which adopted it.
(2) The Board is responsible for convening the next session of the General Assembly before December 2020.
(3) The next session will have to vote on the calendar of sessions for the year 2021.

Concurrent proposal from PPAT:

Statute amendment

A point (8) should hereby be appended to IX. General Assembly:

(8) A voting week equaling an extraordinary session can be held at the request of one third of the Members or by a decision of the board. Procedure as specified in the Rules of Procedure of the PPI General Assembly Article 9 applies.

Vote according to RoP Art 6 (3)

which of those two proposal you are prefer?

1=PPFR proposal, 2=PPAT proposal

• Pirate Party of Austria - 2
• Pirate Party of Brazil - 1
• Pirate Party of Chile - 1
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - 1
• Pirate Party of France - 1
• Pirate Party of Germany - abstain
• Pirate Party Hungary- not voting
• Pirate Party of Italy-abstain
• Pirate Party of Israel-1
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands-2
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote-1
• Pirate Party of Norway-abstain
• Pirate Party of Poland - not present
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - 1
• Pirate Party Switzerland - abstain

1= 6

2= 2

Abstain= 4

Not present= 2

Motion 1 has more votes and carries into next round.

Are you in Favor of Motion 1?

2/3 majority is needed, so abstentions do not count as a vote against. They are not taken into account.

• Pirate Party of Austria - no
• Pirate Party of Brazil - yes
• Pirate Party of Chile - yes
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - yes
• Pirate Party of France - yes
• Pirate Party of Germany - No
• Pirate Party Hungary - not present
• Pirate Party of Italy - abstain
• Pirate Party of Israel - yes
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands - no
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party of Norway - no
• Pirate Party of Poland - not present
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party Switzerland - yes

yes= 7

no= 4

abstain= 1

not present= 2

The half votes are accounted in the tally.

motion does not carry, statutes not changed.

Vojtěch moves to vote on the PPAT motion "voting week".

A point (8) should hereby be appended to IX. General Assembly:

(8) A voting week equaling an extraordinary session can be held at the request of one third of the Members or by a decision of the board. Procedure as specified in the Rules of Procedure of the PPI General Assembly Article 9 applies.

Discussion thus if we should vote on the Austrian proposal for a voting week.

• Pirate Party of Austria - yes
• Pirate Party of Brazil - abstain
• Pirate Party of Chile - yes
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - no
• Pirate Party of France - no
• Pirate Party of Germany - no
• Pirate Party Hungary - not present
• Pirate Party of Italy - abstain
• Pirate Party of Israel - abstain
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party of Norway - no
• Pirate Party of Poland - not present
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - no
• Pirate Party Switzerland - no

Motion
implement the "voting week" statutes amendment
*
Yes : 3,5
No : 5,5
Abstain : 3
Result: Motion did not pass

Clearer composition and elections of the board

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/amendement-clearer-composition-and-elections-of-the-board/239

Question about why we have this revision.

Vojtěch: These are several changes. 1st and 5th ones are about rotating system. The reason is to have clearer rules in case such as resignations, replacements with alternates and such. The proposal 1 is to remove the current number 2a. The proposal 2 says the board consists of 9 members; it clears that chair and vice-chair are truly baord members. Proposal 3 is a technicality, only removing the word "and". Proposal 4 is a separate issue. There are other positions created by the board. Other offices can be created as well by the board. The proposal no. 5 is to clear up some problems with alternate board members - it removes the cap. Any duly supported candidates will fill the position. The alternate only takes the remainder of the position they take over.

Michael: It's a good change but I'll agree with it only unless it doesn't have any impact on the current board members.

Roland: I propose we vote for all five proposals at once.

Vojtěch: Question is how many people are to leave the board (or re-elected) this year.

Gregory: It's five and it's even year, so we're fine.

Vojtěch: We'll deal with the alternates separately.

Bastian: Proposal 5 - it's okay if the alternate follows to the position, takes over the full member position but what about the rest of their alternate term?

Vojtěch: I thought there's no time limit for the alternates.

/a bit of discussion missing here/

Michael: If the alternate takes over a board seat, it's only until the next GA

Vojtěch: Proposals 2 and 3 can be voted together.

Marco: If there is a consensus, let's vote everything together.

Vojtěch: Let's vote at least no. 5 separately. We vote 1-4 together, then 5

CZ Proposal 1:
Art. XII. Board of the Statutes
Remove (2a) and change (5) to:
(5) To establish a rotating system, five positions in the Board are elected on even years and four on odd years.

(2a) This rule applies only once: At the next regular session, every secondary seat of the Board and the Alternate Board - according to the number of their previous votes - will be new elected due to establish a rotating system. In case of a tie at the previous votes a decision is taken by drawing lot.
(5) To establish a rotating system, five positions in the Board are elected on even years and four on odd years.

CZ Proposal 2:
Art. XII. Board of the Statutes
Change (3) to:
(3) The Board is composed of nine Board Members as follows:

CZ Proposal 3:
Art. XII. Board of the Statutes
remove "and" from (4)

(4) The Board elects among the Board Members
a) a Treasurer, and
b) a Chief of Administration,
c) a Chairperson or Vice-Chairperson, if the seat became vacant

CZ Proposal 4:
Art. XII. Board of the Statutes (6) change "positions" to "offices".

(6) Other positionsoffices may be created by the Board.

CZ Proposal 5:
Art. XII. Board of the Statutes (7) to
(7) There shall be Alternate Members of the Board. If one seat of the Board becomes vacant, one of the Alternate Members shall follow-up according to an ordered list. If Alternate Member follows-up to a position, they do so for the remainder of the term of the position.

Proposal 5a
(7) There shall be four Alternate Members of the Board. If one seat of the Board becomes vacant, one of the Alternate Members shall follow-up according to an ordered list. The position of the Alternate Members on the list shall be determined by approval voting. If Alternate Member follows-up to a position, they do so for the remainder of the term of the position.

Proposal 5b
(7) There shall be four Alternate Members of the Board. If one seat of the Board becomes vacant, one of the Alternate Members shall follow-up according to an ordered list. The position of the Alternate Members on the list shall be determined by approval voting. If Alternate Member follows-up to a position, they do so for the remainder of time till the next GA.

• Do we accept Proposals 1 to 4?

• Pirate Party of Austria - yes
• Pirate Party of Brazil - yes
• Pirate Party of Chile - yes
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - yes
• Pirate Party of France - yes
• Pirate Party of Germany - yes
• Pirate Party Hungary - not present
• Pirate Party of Italy - yes
• Pirate Party of Israel - yes
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party of Norway - no
• Pirate Party of Poland - not present
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party Switzerland - no

Motion
Do we accept Proposals 1 to 4
CZ Proposal 1: Art. XII. Board of the Statutes Remove (2a) and change (5) to: (5) To establish a rotating system, five positions in the Board are elected on even years and four on odd years. (2a) This rule applies only once: At the next regular session, every secondary seat of the Board and the Alternate Board - according to the number of their previous votes - will be new elected due to establish a rotating system. In case of a tie at the previous votes a decision is taken by drawing lot. (5) To establish a rotating system, five positions in the Board are elected on even years and four on odd years. CZ Proposal 2: Art. XII. Board of the Statutes Change (3) to: (3) The Board is composed of nine Board Members as follows: CZ Proposal 3: Art. XII. Board of the Statutes remove "and" from (4) (4) The Board elects among the Board Members a) a Treasurer, and b) a Chief of Administration, c) a Chairperson or Vice-Chairperson, if the seat became vacant CZ Proposal 4: Art. XII. Board of the Statutes (6) change "positions" to "offices". (6) Other offices may be created by the Board.
Yes : 10
No : 2
Abstain : 0
Result: Motion passed, statutes changed.

• Do we accept Proposal 5a or 5b?

• Pirate Party of Austria - b
• Pirate Party of Brazil - abstain
• Pirate Party of Chile - b
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - a
• Pirate Party of France - a
• Pirate Party of Germany - b
• Pirate Party Hungary - not present
• Pirate Party of Italy - a
• Pirate Party of Israel - a
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands - a
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - a
• Pirate Party of Norway - b
• Pirate Party of Poland - not present
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - a
• Pirate Party Switzerland - a

A=7 B=4 abstentions=1 not present=2

• Vote on option A

• Pirate Party of Austria - yes
• Pirate Party of Brazil - yes
• Pirate Party of Chile - yes
• Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - yes
• Pirate Party of France - yes
• Pirate Party of Germany - no
• Pirate Party Hungary - not present
• Pirate Party of Italy - yes
• Pirate Party of Israel - yes
• Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes
• Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party of Norway - no
• Pirate Party of Poland - not present
• Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes
• Pirate Party Switzerland - yes

Motion
Vote on proposal 5A
CZ Proposal 5: Art. XII. Board of the Statutes (7) to (7) There shall be four Alternate Members of the Board. If one seat of the Board becomes vacant, one of the Alternate Members shall follow-up according to an ordered list. The position of the Alternate Members on the list shall be determined by approval voting. If Alternate Member follows-up to a position, they do so for the remainder of the term of the position.
Yes : 10
No : 2
Abstain : 0
Result: Motion passed, statutes changed

The motion carries, and the amendment 5a is accepted.

16:27 Pause

Motions

Meeting resumed at 16:39

Rules of procedure for a permanent-general-assembly

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/m1-2-rules-of-procedure-for-a-permanent-general-assembly/253

As the Statute amendement was not passed, It is withdrawn. PPDE takes it over. The RoP is the right way to test the permanent assembly.

Vojtěch: I'm okay these rules of procedure be adopted. I suggest we vote on it separately as a new set of rules for a permanent GA.

Bastian: Rules are better than no rules.

Gregory: The text in the Discourse say we replace by it the current rules of procedure. This will be handled at the end.

Roland: Why to vote on rules that won't be put into use anyway?

Vojtěch: We didn't need the statutes amendment for the voting week.

/we'll be back/

Proposal of PP-DE https://ga.pp-international.net/t/motion1-2-ppde-ppga2020-1/262

Individual Membership Only

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/ppi-should-do-individual-membership-only/252

PPI should do individual membership only. 
> We know that all Pirate parties are built-up on individual membership, these base structure should be used for PPI in the future to cause more in/output. The National party membership is a relic from Industrial ages what does not represent our Pirate values.

Gregory: This motion does not have an eligible sponsor. Is there any party that would like to take this proposal as their own? Going once, going twice, not sold.

Reduce number of members

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/reduce-number-of-members/258

Vojtěch: We're constantly running on the edge of the minimum needed for reaching the quorum. I ask that the board acts on expulsion of parties inactive for three years. If we do this, we'll be more efficient and not so vulnerable by not reaching quorum.

Bailey: fine by me

Mike: Can't the inactive parties just be moved to observers?

Vojtěch: That's why I added the "expulsion or suspension".

Linda: If we don't have any way to get in touch with members, we should just move them to observer status.

Gregory: This vote needs a simple majority.

General assembly tasks the Board to propose exclusion or suspension of membership of Members that were not active in PPI within last 3 years to Court of Arbitration as outlined in Art. VII of Statutes within 3 months from now.

Pirate Party of Austria - yes Pirate Party of Brazil - yes Pirate Party of Chile - yes Pirate Party of Czechia - yes Pirate Party of France - yes Pirate Party of Germany - yes Pirate Party of Italy - yes Pirate Party of Israel - yes Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes Pirate Party of Norway - yes Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes Pirate Party Switzerland - yes

Motion
Reduce number of members
*
Yes : 12
No : 0
Abstain : 0
Result: Motion passed

Move rules to Github

https://ga.pp-international.net/t/move-rules-to-github/259

General Assembly tasks the Board to move all PPI’s Statutes and all other its rules and bylaws to Github or similar platform, where changes can easilly be proposed, discussed, changed and adopted.

Vojtěch: Rules on the web and in the wiki are different. This needs to be amended. The Wiki version should be the most updated rules.

Manuel: Is this meant to use GitHub or just any general Git platform?

Gregory: we have a github team: https://github.com/Pirate-Parties-International

Roland: Is this additional to Discourse, since it's quite hard for people to understand.

Vojtěch: Yes. I believe Git should replace Discourse.

Marco: We would make a master branch in the Git and have a copy on the website?

Vojtěch: I would prefer to move all the rules to Git.

Linda: What is the need to move away from Discourse to a paid platform?

Vojtěch: I'm not aware of Git being paid; I never paid for it. It would be much better to have the text of the statutes there and it's easy to see the difference between versions, unlike Discourse.

Marco: Does Manuel's concern stems from GitHub currently being under Microsoft?

Manuel: It is US based.We do not have the same guarantees as we have on other platforms. US State Dept. regarding sanctions against nations. You can't use it in countries like Venezuela or soon China.

Marco: Can you write down you proposed alternatives?

Gregory: GitHub was blocked in Russia for a time as well.

Roland: It's more about inclusion than the platform itself.

Vojtěch: There is concern about this motion. The motion is withdrawn.

Gregory: Does anyone want to adopt it?

Marco: I would like to adopt it with a modification:

Gregory: There are comments in the chat that GitLab rules. PPFR, And in France we have : https://sources.partipirate.org/users/sign_in

Internet Party of NZ, PPCL: GitLab could be a compromise. Also GNU Savannah could be an option. Is this to see the changes easily, or is this in order to create a different version?

Manuel: I just saw the report that GitHub has nothing to do with the Israel/Palestinian conflict acc. to the UN

Vojtěch: Version system would be useful.

.Gregory: There seems to be a Git integration for Discourse. Is it possible to use Discourse as the front end?

Vojtěch: I believe it would fulfill the motion as it is.

• Marco: PPIT's Proposal:

General Assembly tasks the Board to move all PPI’s Statutes and all other its rules and bylaws to a self-hosted Git server with an HTTP interface available, chosen by the board, where changes can easilly be proposed, discussed, changed and adopted.//

Vojtěch: Do we need it self-hosted?

Marco: The point is to have something over which we have control. To prevent what happened to GitHub in Russia. Depending on the platform, it shouldn't have much of an impact if only used for documents.

Roland: We're moving everything incl. the discussion to GitHub; does that include forum?

Marco: You have to do the changes on Git. We can discuss it as long as we want but the wording will be put to the Git server.

Gregory: Let's vote.

Pirate Party of Austria - no Pirate Party of Brazil - abstain Pirate Party of Chile - yes Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - yes Pirate Party of France - abstain Pirate Party of Germany - yes Pirate Party of Italy - yes Pirate Party of Israel - yes Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes Pirate Party of Norway - no Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes Pirate Party Switzerland - abstain

Yes=7 No=2 Abstain=3 Motion passed=yes

Motion
Move rules to Github
*
Yes : 7
No : 2
Abstain : 3
Result: Motion passed

Rules of Procedure for a Permanent General Assembly

Bastian, concern about the RoP.

Proposal of PP-DE https://ga.pp-international.net/t/motion1-2-ppde-ppga2020-1/262

• Article 1: Sessions

(1) The General Assembly is convened according to the calendar of sessions.

(2) One session is a 5 weeks cycle organized like this: Week 1 and 2: Tabling of motions on the agenda before the Board

Week 2 and 3: week of debate and amendment

Week 4: Voting week

• Article 2: Tabling of motions

(1) One week before the opening of the tabling of motions the Board sent a reminder email to the Members with the deadlines for the ongoing session. (2) Motions are tabled before the Board on a dedicated place on PPI’s Discourse. Motions should at least contain: A summary of the motion, explaining the reasoning behind the motion, how it should be interpreted. This part should include arguments for the motion but not the motion itself. A proposal which is the detailed motion itself. The names of the members tabling the motion. The motion must be signed by at least one Ordinary or Observer members to be tabled. (3) Any motion that does not meet these conditions will be refused. (4) Any motion which will be tabled, fulfilling the required conditions is entered on the agenda of the General Assembly.

• Article 3: Publication of the agenda

(1) At the end of the second week of the session, the Board publishes the final agenda for the session.

• Article 4: Amendments

(1) Amendments may be tabled during the weeks of debate with the same conditions as a motion. (2) Those who have tabled the motion have the option of indicating whether they want to merge their motion with one or more amendments before the closing of debates. If they do not indicate that they want to merge the amendment, the amendment is considered as a counter-proposal.

• Article 5: Debates

(1) The motions on the agenda of the General Assembly are transferred to Discourse to be debated in writing. (2) At the end of the fourth week, the Board organizes a physical or online meeting for debates. At the end of this meeting, all debates and amendment tabling are closed.

• Article 6: Oral debates

(1) The Board appoint one chairperson and one vice-chairperson to chair the oral debates. If the chairperson resigns during the meeting, the vice-chairperson replaces it. If the vice-chairperson resigns during meeting, one board member chairs the meeting. (2) The chairperson leads the proceedings, recognizes speakers and maintains order during the meeting. It can set up speaking time and turn if it judges it necessary. The chairperson cannot participate to the debates. (3) Requests for the floor by local and remote delegates, PPI Officers and members of the public are acknowledged in the order received. In questionable cases the Chairperson decides. The chairperson may refuse to allow members of the public to speak if there is not enough time. (4) The Chairperson can yield the floor to speakers and the person who made the motion also out of turn. (5) Concerning the remote delegates A) The Chairperson appoints a proxy person through which the remote delegates may act. B) The remote delegates may request the floor to make a statement or ask a question by explicitly indicating so. The proxy person will then request the floor on their behalf.

• Article 7: Voting procedure

(1) Voting takes place on a tool chooses by the Board according to the present rules and other needs expressed by members. (2) Voting is electronic and not secret. Voting can be anonymized during the voting period. (3) According to the statutes the quorum is fixed at two-third of the members. The quorum is calculated for each motion. There is no count of the quorum before the vote. (4) In principle, to be adopted, the motion and the nomination must receive an absolute majority of votes. As an exception, the majority is raised to: 2/3 of the voters for the modification of the this Rules of Procedures. 2/3 of the voters for the creation of committees. (5) The majority is calculated by the repartition of the yes and the no. Abstain is not count in the final result. (6) If several motions or nomination are competing the delegates vote by ranking the proposition from the more favourite to the least favourite. For competing motions, the one which is the most favourite of all is adopted. For competing nomination, every position available is fulfil with the candidates that are the best ranked.

• Article 8: Miscellaneous

(1) A motion can only be modified or deleted by the Permanent Assembly in accordance with the voting procedures under which it was added.

: Points of Order was made that Switzerland nominated Bailey to take over temporarily,

Roland: So this is just to have it in case we want to test it?

Bastian: It's just in case we want to test it so the board moves within the rules.

Gregory: We already have a line about a permanent online assembly.

Roland: We voted on a statutes amendment that will not happen and now we're putting the same power to the hands of the board?

Bastian: You can't make decisions. You can have a meeting to test how it worked. That is all. If you want to make decisions you still have to make a regular GA. The GA is called by the board. It is not the same as the GA called for in the statutes.

Gregory: This is just a test run?

Bastian: Yes. And a test run should be run by rules and we can make a decision at the next GA.

Linda: Is there anything in the current statutes to call for a 3 month permanent assembly?

Vojtěch: Yes; the board can call for an extraordinary session but it would be ruled by the current rules of procedure, not these. The board cannot create rules for the GA.

Roland: We just voted that we're not gonna have it and now we're creating rules for a text run. Where's the democracy in that?

Manuel: Can it be specifically voted on just for the purposes of a test run?

Bastian: It's just a motion to have rules of procedure for a permanent assembly, so we can test it without any problems. It hurts nobody and makes no problems; it's just a basis to organise a test; the board can do it anyway, just without rules.

Linda: In case my iPad dies, I give my vote to Svein.

Vojtěch: I have one big problem: in article 7, no.4 - it should at least specify that these rules of procedure will apl.

Bastian: Fixed.

Grgory: We can vote.

Pirate Party of Austria - no Pirate Party of Brazil - yes Pirate Party of Chile - no Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - abstain Pirate Party of France - no Pirate Party of Germany - yes Pirate Party of Italy - abstain Pirate Party of Israel - abstain Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - yes Pirate Party of Norway - no Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes Pirate Party Switzerland - abstain

Motion
*
Yes : 4
No : 4
Abstain : 4
Result: Motion failed

The motion was defeated, but it was close.

Gregory: We are finished with voting, and we are doing ok on time.

Alternate Board Member Replacement (If necessary)

Not necessary anymore, as the amendment removing precise number of alternates was passed.

remark from the meeting chair, after the GA: this was actually a mistake. proposal 5A has passed, and it still prescribe a precise number of alternates...

BarCamp/Discussion (until we decide to close the General Assembly)

https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/ppi-barcamp-may-2020-ee1zl063

Bailey: I think it is really important that we have a discussion about PPI, what we are doing. Is it working, not working. We have time to do the bar camp.

Gregory: The BarCamp is a session with a whiteboard, where also public can discuss. I would like to discuss the manifesto, and others can discuss other topics. If someone would like to discuss a topic with me, we can go to a breakout room and discuss the results when we get back together. The idea is that everyone can participate and choose where they go to. We could also move topics to these small rooms.

Strawpoll: How do you feel about continuing?

Pirate Party of Austria - abstain Pirate Party of Brazil - abstain Pirate Party of Chile - abstain Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - abstain Pirate Party of France - yes Pirate Party of Germany - finish the GA and come to it later Pirate Party of Italy - abstain Pirate Party of Israel - abstain Pirate Party of the Netherlands - what Germany said Internet Party of New Zealand ½Vote - no Pirate Party of Norway - no and talk this through at Pirate Beer Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - abstain Pirate Party Switzerland - abstain

Gregory: We will finish and do the barcamp as part of the unofficial part. We can end the GA officially and have the barcamp after today.

Bailey: In future GAs, we can work more to have this as part of the regular GA. I really like the idea.

AOB

Use of Software for Video Conferencing

Bailey: I would like to talk about this with everyone here.

Gregory: We received an official complaint from PP of Catalonia to stop using Zoom. They recommended Jitsi. PPI had an internal discussion, and we understand that Jitsi is possible. With 37 people like today, it can work if people keep their video turned off, but then we could just use Mumble. We decided that it was better to see everyone, and we could not find an alternative to Zoom. Since we have a free offer from PPNO, so we were not opposed. However, there are other issues with Zoom being talked about badly in the press and does not transport Pirate values, while other software does. I understood that there is a wish to not use Zoom. It was too late for us to organize this meeting with Zoom. I had a conversation with Roland, and we will examine other software such as Gotomeeting, or another replacement.

Mike: Is there any party present that has a problem with Zoom?

Bastian: I have a problem with the data protection of Zoom. If we discuss that longer, then we can test some professional tools by the board and we come together and find out a reasonable solution, so we can provide it to our members. I think we should stop the discussion without a viable alternative. I also think this is only regarding the GA, not Pirate beer. If we have an official meeting though, we should use a tool that is not a problem for data protection. That is my opinion.

Bailey: Gregory already explained but I want to say this as well - we didn't pick Zoom for anything because we think it's wonderful; we agree it has it's issues. We are using it to keep things simple and since it's tested and always worked well, we just kept it. We invite the larger discussion here; we know there are parties for which proprietary SW is the only way but it's not always realistic to do that. It's a needed conversation. We need our tools to work and Zoom is tested. We've been using it for Pirate Beers between the GA's. There's a lot of us so we either can be terrible Pirates to use Zoom and be sure it works or limit the number of participants or find some other way. Change is an option when we know there is an alternative. We hear those who say they do not like Zoom and we get it. We just have to pick something and make it work. Hopefully before the next GA we can find a good alternative. We don't necessarily need video, but some people do like it. We are looking for a more ethical choice than Zoom.

Roland: I want to point out that this has been discussed for months now. Bastian summed it up. We need tool that will handle this. There's the same discussion in the PPEU and we'll probably have a budget there to get a server and have a chance to try out Big Blue Button (BBB). We hope to make progress in the next few months

Marco: I wanted to note that Eduardo will now lead the PPIT delegation.

Manuel: I found out we have three alternatives that we can check out. The three are: BBB, Jami, Tox. I got to try BBB in the university and it works for medium-sized gatherings.

Etienne: I don't mind using Zoom but get the people who are against it. None of the free platforms run as well as Zoom unless one has big infrastructure. There cn be ethical questions but if we have a lot of people, we have to accommodate them and Zoom is currently the only solution. The last week's GA of the PPEU was a nightmare in comparison to ours today.

Svein: PPNO is using Zoom. For our purposes we haven't find anything better than Zoom and thus will continue using it.

Bailey: I'd like to point out that this room is provided to us generously for free by the PPNO.

Svein: Also the Norwegian Parliament is using Zoom.

Roland: We have to discern between PR tools and internal discussions. For the inside meetings we should be truthful to our values.

Gregory acting on the tech. note from Bastian: I suggest we talk about the needs assesment during the Pirate Beer.

Bailey: I really want to hear from you guys what you think of the current direction of the PPI.

Bailey giving a promo to Pirate Beer.

Needs Assessment Summary and Discussion

https://lime.ppi.rocks/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=667442

PPI Public Statement on the COVID-19 Crisis

• https://pp-international.net/2020/04/covid19/

Keith: I wanted to present the statement. We need to do more for the public.

Julian Assange Campaign

Shured: I am not an official delegate, but I would like PPI to take the lead. Is anyone interested in getting involved in the Julian Assange Campaign?

Jo Booth: IPnz is interested. The Internet Party was... I remember waking up in the morning after creating #Unity4J to thousands of people... What I was expecting from a technical perspective If we let the US to take journalist from us, we all lose our voice and ability to speak out and it's what resonates with many people. I encourage you all to get behind this guy stuck in a place even without charges. We all do what we can. I technically enable people.

Shured: This is a chance for PPI to show what we stand for as an organisation. People will see that. We can start with some brainstorming session.

Bailey: I think #Pirates4Assange is a cool hashtag to go with. We can do that for other whistleblowers too; such as Reality Winter with the Russian attacks on the US voting machines. Then she got thrown into jail and nobody mentions her.

===================================================

• Meeting Closed: 18:21 CEST/DST (16:21 UTC)

Gregory

Pirate beer is later tonight.

Standing committees will be announced.

Our board meeetings are open to you all.