This monday I had a nice opportunity to visit Belgian Pirates - in Antwerp, one of the largest cities in Belgium (and the largest one in Flanders). Antwerp is a very nice city - and the place we met at Dageraadplaast was great. As it is very often with Pirates - we talked about politics. 

In 2014 Belgium will see triple elections: Regional (Flemish and Wallonian), National ones and European. And the Belgian Pirate Party would like to participate in the run; to try to challenge all the other major parties. In order to do so, a petition must be submitted; a party has to obtain at least five thousand signatures on a petition (we do have a similar criteria in the Czech Republic for example for the presidential elections). Having this in mind, The Antwep Pirate community met and discussed about this issue, as well as about the other issues around local politics. 

It proved to be uneasy, but a steady progress can be seen; the people are fulfilling the petition forms, trying to help the Pirate party to participate in the major political game in Belgium. They even did attract sypmathisers at the very spot where we met. Pierre de Coubertin once said: The important thing is not to win, but to take part.  In order to take part for the Belgian Pirates, many of the forms have to be still filled. Besides,

This brings me back to the January 2013 and to the already mentioned presidential elections we had in the Czech Republic. During that very period of time, our squares turned into small political arenas; people were debating about who the next head of the state will be like and who do they support and why. In fact, I have to admit that I've signed petitions for about most of the candidates - even for those I would never vote for, but I would like to see them in the competition.  What I see and what I've experienced back in Prague almost a year ago I've told my belgian friends. So I hope we will see the Piratenpartij/Parti Pirate next year in the elections like we did in Luxembourg, Germany or the Czech Republic!