Last sunday, the Pirate Party Germany reached another milestone. With 7.8 percent of the vote, 20 pirates are entering the parliament of Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The Pirate Party is now present in four of Germany's 16 states, having scored well above 5 percent in every election since the Berlin elections in September 2011. The 20 delegates make up the largest Pirate parliamentary group to date.

Campaign poster "Education can't be cheap"

Aside from their trademark topics of civil liberties, freedom of information and transparency of the state, one of the most important campaign topics for the Pirates of NRW was proposing an educational system that will allow all students to be taught at the same schools where they can progress through a flexible course system at their individual pace. The new style of politics that many voters expect from the Pirate Party could already be witnessed on monday, as the new parliamentary group got together for its first meeting, which was streamed live to the internet and collaboratively documented in a pirate pad.

Campaign Poster "Rights to creators and consumers"

The Pirate Party NRW will be an opposition party, as the Social Democrats and the Green Party will be renewing their coalition. They had been governing North Rhine-Westphalia as a minority government since 2010, but were unable to pass a budget, which led to the 2012 re-elections. Social Democrats and Greens now have a solid majority of 128 to 109 seats. Members of the new Pirate parliamentary group have already announced that they are willing to support individual policies of the government coalition, whenever they are in accordance with the Pirate Party's platform. They are determined to respect the MP's freedom to vote according to their own conscience and foster a political culture that makes minority governments and changing majorities more feasible, as they are still very rare in Germany's political system.

Social Democrats and Greens now have a solid majority of 128 to 109 seats. Members of the new Pirate parliamentary group have already announced that they are willing to support individual policies of the government coalition, whenever they are in accordance with the Pirate Party's platform. They are determined to respect the MP's freedom to vote according to their own conscience and foster a political culture that makes minority governments and changing majorities more feasible, as they are still very rare in Germany's political system.

Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party had its worst election result to date in NRW, going from 34.6 percent in 2010 to just 26.3 percent in 2012. The disastrous result led Merkel to fire environment minister Norbert Röttgen who had been leading the Christian Democrats in NRW. If the national coalition of Christian Democrats and Free Democrats survives for the rest of the term, the Pirates will be looking at national elections in September 2013. While a lot may still happen in the meantime, the results from NRW as well as national polls that see the Pirates at about 10 percent, are reason to be optimistic.