PPI Minutes 2019 12 07

GA 2019 - Day One

Opening

• Board delegatives members :
  • Cedric Levieux (PPFR)(PPI)
  • keithgoldstein
  • BaileyL
  • RayJohansen
  • MichalGill
  • Dichter
• Organizations :
  • PPFR (1.00)
  • PPDE (1.00)
  • PPCAT (1.00)
  • PPCZ (1.00)
  • PPNO (1.00)
  • PPBR (1.00)
  • PPSK (1.00)
  • PPIT (1.00)
  • PPNL (1.00)
    • 9/19

Absents

• Organizations Registered:
  • PPAT
  • PPIL
  • PPNZ
  • PPJP
  • PPLU
  • PPES
  • PPCH
  • PPTN
  • PPPT
  • PPEE
  • PPHU
  • IPNZ

Agenda

09:00 - Delegates accreditation and preparation

summary--->We met starting at 9 and started counting delegates. Each party is being recognized, we were short of quorum as of 10 am CET. The GA officially begins at 11 am CET. If we don't have a quorum by then we can proceed with certain aspects of the GA, reports, etc. However, there are other aspects such as rules of procedure that cannot be handled.

summary--->Tally of countries present

Austria Catalonia Germany Israel Italy France Czech Norway Netherlands Brazil Luxembourg Greece

summary--->Tally of countries present and their delegates (to preserve privacy, representatives are listed separately)

Russia arrived late but will be present tomorrow. Portugal arrived late and joined.

11:00 - Opening of the General Assembly

summary--->Bailey begins the GA at 11:12 am.

summary--->It is awesome to see all of you here. I know we were worried about making Quorum. There are difficulties with zoom, congressus, and tech stuff. We appreciate your patience. We are almost ready to get going. Let's have a good GA this weekend, and let's move PPI forward. We have Marco here who is our nominated chair. Does anyone object to Marco being the chair? (No objections). I pass it off to Marco. GA is officially open.

summary--->I name two vice chairs for the meeting, Bailey and Raymond, please catch my attention if someone is speaking and I don't pay attention.

summary--->If there is a volunteer who wants to tally the votes with me, please let me know now. There is a problem when we use a delegate to tally.

summary--->Keith will take the notes of the meeting.

summary--->Additional staff for vote counts is Michael Sinclair.

summary--->My name is Marco Confeliere member of Pirate Party of Italy. I am the chairman of the GA.

12:00 - Formalities: Meeting chair, secretary, new members

summary--->Meeting chair is Marco. Vice chairs are Bailey and Ray. Secretary (minute taker) is Keith, Vote Tallier Assistant is Michael.

summary--->Norway, yes

Czech, yes

Brazil, yes

Germany, yes

Italy, yes

Switzerland, yes

Israel, yes

Greece, yes

Catalonia, yes

Austria, yes

Netherlands, yes

Luxembourg, yes

France, yes

summary--->We have a voting power of 12.5, so we have a quorum.

summary--->Note that Catalonia has .5 votes.

summary--->Presentation of the new members

summary--->The new members are Pirate Party of Slovakia and Pirate Party of Brandenburg.

summary--->The first step is to ask the board if both parties have presented a proper application. Do both of the applicants have a full application? Yes (Bailey)

summary--->Pirate Party of Slovakia in the past was just an association and not a party. For some reasons that I don't want to say here, they are split and now we are 15 members. We went through all the applications to be a proper politician party. So now we are a party and have a name Pirate Party Slovakia. We are officially registered, and now we want to be an official member of PPI.

summary--->Question about where I can see the application in full.

summary--->Pirátska strana - Slovensko (Pirate Party – Slovakia)

Pri pšeni?nej bráne 495/31 900 43 Hamuliakovo Slovakia (P.O.BOX 39, 810 08 Bratislava, Slovakia) June 18 2019 Pirate Parties International (PPI) c/o Maître Dimitri Tzortzis BST-Avocats 4, boulevard des Tranchées CH 1205 Genève Switzerland Dear board members of the Pirate Party International, I’m contacting you as a chair of the Pirátska strana – Slovensko (Pirate Party – Slovakia) on behalf of my colleagues in the party on the matter of our desire to join ranks of the PPI as early as on the next (December 2019) General Assembly. For the last year, since our split with the Slovak Pirate Party, which is already nominally a member of the PPI, we’ve been closely collaborating with the Czech Pirate Party and would like to expand our horizons and ties to other Pirate parties out there. The desire to join your organisation has been expressed by a unanimous agreement by our members. We also express our agreement with the mission and, perhaps even more importantly, the statutes of the PPI. So as it is a requirement for an application to be even considered: The Pirate Party - Slovakia hereby expresses its adoption of the PPI’s statutes. We’re therefore sending you this application, which, I hope, shall meet all the necessary requirements, either directly in it or attached to it in other files (some submitted later on), for us to be allowed to be voted on by the upcoming GA. As the contact person (international coordinator) we chose, for the moment, myself, until such time we elect a permanent coordinator. You also require an e-mail address for any possible press communication, which would be press@smepirati.sk; for any general queries also info@smepirati.sk is available. The date we consider our party to have been established on is December 31 2018, which is the date of our registration as an NGO by the Slovak Ministry of Interior. Since then, we managed to acquire a friendly defunct political party, completely took control over it (just in the terms of its shell and it being already a registered party, which is immensely hard to do by oneself in Slovakia) and are now in the process of submitting our new statutes (based on those of the PPCZ) and changing its name to Pirate Party – Slovakia. Any necessary documents (with English translations), shall be sent to you shortly. We just want to deliver this application in time for the one month deadline before the December GA. Although the political landscape of Slovakia is very different, in time we’d like to emulate the success of the Czech Pirate Party, which currently takes place in our sister country. The current board members are as follows: Michal Pírek, chair Peter Rigo, vice-chair Zuzana Krušinová, board member We’re looking forward to your reply as well as to our party being a member of the PPI one day. Sincerely Michal Pírek m.p. chair of the Pirate Party – Slovakia +421 917 677 464 michal.pirek@smepirati.sk Attachments: 1) Party statutes in Slovak* 2) Party statutes in English* 3) Party’s program in Slovak* 4) Excerpt from party’s program in English* 5) Registration of the NGO in Slovak + English description of the document* 6) Party’s logo

• Marked attachments shall be delivered to you at the shortest possible time, probably within a

week. We apologise for this inconvenience.

summary--->There is a question regarding the application. There is one association that is a member of PPI. There is another party, which is applying for membership, so we will have two members from the one country. There is a question if these are two movements or two parties, or one party and one movement. There is a question about why there are two associations with bank accounts. The association no longer exists. There is a question about how the party exists alongside another Pirate party. There is a situation that there is one association that is a member of the PPI, and there is a party that wants to be a member of PPI. This party came into being by overtaking another party. So, I wonder if both parties can be members. The statutes encourage that the parties work together to form a confederation. I ask whether the laws and bilaws have been sent. I would like to ask if those requirements were met? Yes, they were met. They were sent 4 weeks ahead of time. The amendments were sent afterwards, which is acceptable.

We are trying to join forces and be just one, but unfortunately the people from the association have refused this. In the future I hope that there will be just one party, and not many associations. No further questions.

Motion
Do we accept the application of the Pirate Party of Slovakia to be an ordinary member of PPI?
Accept the application to be a PPI ordinary member
Yes :
No :
Abstain :
Result: Motion rejetée

summary--->There is a comment about whether both parties can be observers.

There is another comment whether the association can be a full member, and whether the association should be an observer member and the party be the full member.

My (Marco's) proposal is that we have two rounds of votes, one to ask if they have ordinary membership and if not with a subsequent vote whether they can be ordinary members.

Motion
Practice vote
This is a practice vote
Yes : {{{Yes}}}
No : {{{No}}}
Abstain :
Result: Motion rejetée

summary--->Pirate Party of Slovakia vote.

1 abstain 1 no 10.5 votes passed

Congratulations to PP Slovaki

summary--->There appears to not have been an application with PP Brandenburg. Bastian also does not know of an application, and we can postpone that point.

PP Chile wants to apply. They sent us an informal application. We are waiting. If they send us a formal application now during the GA, then we can vote on it at the next GA.

summary--->The meeting is adjourned for a pause.

MichalGill: Better late than never - Slovak statutes:

https://www.smepirati.sk/assets/static/download/20191101_piratska_strana_stanovy.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3juk9e3q93D02ewguQaXRd7VXGalWGNnzPXZKLDZW8gTLRLRop5IUYKI8

MichalGill: [better link](https://www.smepirati.sk/assets/static/download/20191101_piratska_strana_stanovy.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3juk9e3q93D02ewguQaXRd7VXGalWGNnzPXZKLDZW8gTLRLRop5IUYKI8)

MichalGill: [better link](https://www.smepirati.sk/assets/static/download/20191101_piratska_strana_stanovy.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3juk9e3q93D02ewguQaXRd7VXGalWGNnzPXZKLDZW8gTLRLRop5IUYKI8)

13:00 - Agenda discussion and acceptance

There were no objections to the agenda. There is a discussion about moving the reports to before lunch.

Perhaps we should expand on the issue of how we can work on the issue of making a quorum every year. This will be another motion that can be proposed.

13:30 - Lunch

There was a discussion to delay lunch.

15:00 - Reports: Board, Treasurer, Lay Auditors and CoC

This was moved up to before lunch.

Bailey starts with the board report.

A good place to start is the UN activities. PPI has special consultative status with ECOSOC. This allows us to send Pirates to events in NY, Geneva, and Vienna. (Also, other locations for special events.)

We worked on 3 policy papers that were published.

We have one paper that is in consideration, we also have a request to speak at an upcoming

Link to board report: <a href="https://ga.pp-international.net/t/ppi-board-report/210" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; cursor: pointer !important;">https://ga.pp-international.net/t/ppi-board-report/210</a>

summary--->Link to the Treasurer Report: https://ga.pp-international.net/t/treasury-report/204/3

Link to the budget: https://ga.pp-international.net/t/bookeeping-2019/198

summary--->Treasurer report made by Dan Prazeres of PP Brazil.

summary--->Link to report of lay auditor: https://ga.pp-international.net/t/report-of-lay-auditors/212

summary--->Remarks by Ray that we have made revisions. The bookkeeping is in order, and we are now fiscally organized and spending less than we bring in. There should be more income next year as we raised fees.

summary--->Comments from Mike that he apologies for being ineffectual during his time as treasurer. Big thanks to Dan for taking over.

summary--->Comment from Carlos, main representative for PPI in UN Geneva, that we need to work on getting donations. He knows that there are finance areas for donations to institutions.

summary--->Question about the fees, and in my country in Luxembourg, I don't know if we received a mail with the numbers. Comment that the email was sent to Luxembourg.

summary--->Note to meeting attendees that the board meeting minutes can be suggested in the following page, which we will review and add later to the minutes upon review: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/2019-ga-day-1-llf80si

summary--->There is no member of the lay auditors present.

summary--->Thomas Gaul presented on behalf of the CoA. They convened once to decide on members who had dissolved. That is what they did. They submitted a report on this.

summary--->Report of CoA: https://ga.pp-international.net/t/report-of-court-of-arbitration/214

15:45 - Statutes Amendments aka Changes to Statutes

<a href="https://ga.pp-international.net/t/statute-revisions-xii-board/158">https://ga.pp-international.net/t/statute-revisions-xii-board/158</a>

summary--->We propose an increase in board size by two members, as well as two

additional alternate board members.

One new new member is elected for one year, and the other for two years during this first year.

The statute will read as follows:

XII. Board. The Board is composed of: a) one Chairperson, b) one Vice-Chairperson, c) seven additional Board Members (2b)

summary--->Please see the Discourse link above for the full text of the motion.

summary--->There is a comment that there are people who will volunteer for the board, so there is not a major need for more members.

summary--->Comment that I would like to remove the request for an additional set of votes for alternate board members from Vojtech of PPCZ. We definitely need more alternate members, as we used up all of them.

summary--->Comment that being a board member pushes people to be more involved.

summary--->Ray comments that he would like to encourage our members to vote yes, because of what is lacking and us knowing as the board what was lacking.

summary--->Comment that increasing the board will not make a difference, but you need to have discipline. I think that everyone needs to see prior to volunteering whether they will be committed.

summary--->Request if we can vote in two parts for this. I don't think we need to have a specific number of additional members in the board.

summary--->Ideally the board would be able to increase its size with its needs. In the worst case we end up dissolved because there is no board to arrange any decisions. The lesser evil is to have a bit too many people. I don't see things not working because there is too much discussion. I trust the board to meet and come decisions accordingly. Also, there is no way to know what will happen to you in the next two years. People need to run for the board without being sure of what will happen.

Motion
Do we accept the motion to increase XII. Board. c) from five to seven additional Board Members?
Increase the board size statute amendment
Yes :
No :
Abstain :
Result: Motion rejetée

summary--->Counter proposal from Vojtech: https://forum.pirati.cz/viewtopic.php?p=647975#p647975

Motion
PPCZ Alternate Member Proposal
6. Election Methoda) Before the voting, the number of elected positions should be decided, if Statutes require to do so. b) Every Ordinary Member may vote "yes" for any number of candidates. c) The candidates that has achieved a simple majority of the "yes" votes from Ordinary Members present or represented and voting on them(St X(1)) are elected in the order determined by number of "yes" votes accumulated. Abstentions are not taken into account. In event of a tie where order matters, deciding elections are held, where only one "yes" vote per Ordinary Member can be cast.d) If the decided number (Art. 6a(6a)) of positions is not filled, additional round of elections is held unless decided otherwise.e) If elected positions allow for alternate members, candidates who were not elected only due to the lack of positions, are elected to the end of alternates list.
Yes :
No :
Abstain :
Result: Motion rejetée

summary--->A new member from Portugal has arrived, Andre Rosa

summary--->There is a proposal from PPDE for a straw pole to see if there is enough support to go on with this issue. No objections and seconded.

summary--->Straw people about whether the member would accept the motion. Thi is in the statutes as a procedural motion to accept the straw pole.

summary--->Norway yes

Czech what is the question? Would you accept the statutes amendment. Answer is no. Brazil answer is yes Germany yes Italy yes Israel yes Greece yes Catalonia abstain Austria abstain Netherlands yes Luxembourg yes France not present Switzerland not present Slovakia yes Portugal abstain

summary--->There is enough support to continue.

Additional people would like to talk before the vote. Vojtech explains his vote. He is ok with the decision to expand the board, and asks for the motion to be split.

summary--->

The statute is split into 2 and will read as follows: A) XII. Board. The Board is composed of: a) one Chairperson, b) one Vice-Chairperson, c) seven additional Board Members (2b).

Motion: Do we vote to increase the board members by 2 (from 5 to 7)?

B) Additional board members would be decided as such: Before the voting, the number of elected positions should be decided, if Statutes require to do so. b) Every Ordinary Member may vote “yes” for any number of candidates. c) The candidates that has achieved a simple majority of the “yes” votes from Ordinary Members present or represented and voting on them(St X(1)) are elected in the order determined by number of “yes” votes accumulated. Abstentions are not taken into account. In event of a tie where order matters, deciding elections are held, where only one “yes” vote per Ordinary Member can be cast.d) If the decided number (Art. 6a(6a)) of positions is not filled, additional round of elections is held unless decided otherwise.e) If elected positions allow for alternate members, candidates who were not elected only due to the lack of positions, are elected to the end of alternates list.

Motion: Do we vote to allow alternate board members to be elected as a runoff from board members as described above?

Modification proposal: https://forum.pirati.cz/viewtopic.php?p=647975#p647975

Proposal B shoud read:

(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 a 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 does so for the remaining term of the position.

summary--->Comment that the Pirate Party of Russia is here but they have problems joining.

summary--->Proposal B shows the change of the ROP and not a change to the statutes. The ROP that they are proposing may not be able to be decided at the moment.

summary--->(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 a list. Article 12, 3. should be changed along with 12, 7. The position of the Alternate Members on the list shall be determined by approval voting.

(8) Alternate Members following-up on the Board shall have no office, but may be elected into one by a majority vote of the Board.

summary--->We are going to vote on A then B.

summary--->The proxy from Norway was transferred to Ray.

summary--->The vote must be 2/3 of the attending members.

The statute is split into 2 and will read as follows: A) XII. Board. The Board is composed of: a) one Chairperson, b) one Vice-Chairperson, c) seven additional Board Members (2b). Motion: Do we vote to increase the board members by 2? B) Additional board members would be decided as such: Before the voting, the number of elected positions should be decided, if Statutes require to do so. b) Every Ordinary Member may vote “yes” for any number of candidates. c) The candidates that has achieved a simple majority of the “yes” votes from Ordinary Members present or represented and voting on them(St X(1)) are elected in the order determined by number of “yes” votes accumulated. Abstentions are not taken into account. In event of a tie where order matters, deciding elections are held, where only one “yes” vote per Ordinary Member can be cast.d) If the decided number (Art. 6a(6a)) of positions is not filled, additional round of elections is held unless decided otherwise.e) If elected positions allow for alternate members, candidates who were not elected only due to the lack of positions, are elected to the end of alternates list. Motion: Do we vote to allow alternate board members to be elected as a runoff from board members as described above? Counter proposal: https://forum.pirati.cz/viewtopic.php?p=647975#p647975 Modified proposal: Proposal B shoud read: (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 a 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 does so for the remaining term of the position. Proposal B shows the change of the ROP and not a change to the statutes. The ROP that they are proposing may not be able to be decided at the moment. The vote must be 2/3 of the attending members. The motion is passed. There is a debate about having the meeting adjourned at 15 CET for an hour. There are counter proposals to adjourn and vote on Part B later. Propsal (B - PP-CZ) (6) To establish a rotating system, four positions in the Board are elected on odd years and three od even years. (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 a 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 does so for the remaining term of the position. (8) Alternate Members following-up on the Board shall have no office, but may be elected into one by a majority vote of the Board. We are voting whether we want to vote to end the statute amendments. Does anyone object to anything about statute amendments, so there will be no more additional statute amendment discussions? Are we just scrapping it? If no one objects we would be scrapping 2 B. This is a procedural motion to end the statute amendment discussion. Does anyone object that we are closing the statute amendment now?

Michael objects.

So the procedural motion is put to a vote.

Norway votes yes

Czech votes to continue the discussion no

Brazil abstain

Germany yes

Italy yes

Israel yes Greece no Catalonia abstain Austria yes Netherlands no Luxembourg yes France not present Switzerland yes Slovakia no Portugal abstain

Do we have a simple majority?

7 yes, 4 no 2 abstain procedural motion passed. Meeting is adjourned for tomorrow at 10:00.

Comment that we should have another beer night.

This evening at 20:00 CET we will have another beer session on Zoom at the same location.