På fredag den 24 maj anordnar Amelia en paneldiskussion om e-legitimation och den nya förordning som är på väg genom EU.

I korta drag handlar det om hur EU vill att den privata och säkra kommunikationen mellan medborgare och den offentliga förvaltningen ska ske, hur vi ska identifieras/autentiseras mot varandra och hur det ska fungera över gränserna i EU. Problemet med förordningen är att den försöker harmonisera en uppsjö av olika system och rättsliga traditioner (såsom den tyska byråkratiska traditionen med det italienska närmast traumatiska myndighetskommunicerande med den svenska e-legitimationen som administreras av banker osv osv) och detta är en himla röra.

Allmänheten är hjärtligt välkommen att delta i publiken i den 1,5 timme långa paneldiskussionen på Europahuset i Stockholm kl 15:00, ställa frågor eller bara fika.

I panelen sitter Eva Ekenberg från E-legitimationsnämnden, Tobias Pulls från Karlstad Universitet och Jörgen Sandberg från Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting.

Välkomna till Europahuset på Regeringsgatan 65 Stockholm. Fikat börjar en stund innan evenemanget.

This week Amelia is in Strasbourg for the monthly plenary session. As usually, Strasbourg weeks are intense and full of meetings. Late in the week, Amelia will travel to Stockholm for the Stockholm Internet Forum. You can see her schedule below:

Monday
15:00 – 16:00 Meeting with the .kids foundation
16:00 – 18:00 Green Group Meeting

Tuesday
10:00 – 11:00 Meeting with Nelly Kroes on Trans-European telecommunications networks
16:00 – 18:00 Internet Core Group Meeting
16:00 – 16:30 Meeting with Ms Pilar del Castillo Vera on eID
17:00 – 18:00 Meeting with the European Commission with a specific focus on delegated and implemented acts in the proposal for eIDAS Regulation.
19:00 – 21:00 Green Group Meeting

Wednesday
09:00 – 09:30 Meeting with the Danish Composers collective
09:30 – 11:30 First meeting of the new Green Working Group on the TTIP
Flight to Stockholm for the Stockholm Internet Forum

Thursday
Whole day at the Stockholm Internet Forum

I attach importance to personal impressions, they are subjective of course, but they are reality, non-said, subjective reality, and they are also probably feed by external, “wire-less” vibrations. You can feel in the air when an entity is alive also because of the waves it spreads all around, and sometimes you get its message. “Without words”.

The General Assembly of the German Pirate Party was a vibrant demonstration of collective vitality. Each attending person knew she/he was a living part (which means, considered as such by all the others) of a common political construction. What stroke me is the energy that came out from the well prepared and accepted confrontation of each one’s strong determination to do it right. And the good organisation of the event that has been already praised by my colleagues , where it was obvious everyone knew what he/she had to do and why, enabled to frame and project this energy towards a hopeful political future.

Around 300 proposals were debated and voted, on the party program for the next federal election in November, on the party fundamental program, its statutes, and position papers.

When the proposal was presented by a member on stage in front of the whole assembly, people who wanted to ask questions to the member registered and did so when reaching the mike after they queued along a “question” line. Those who wanted to speak for or against the proposal also took the floor to support or challenge the proposal vis-à-vis the member on stage and the audience along a “pro” or “contra” line. And then came the vote...

Most debates went easy-peasy, Some were electric; but the chairperson was always there to make sure misbehaviours were avoided, and they were. Basis democracy was indeed a reality during these three days.

Knowledge is power says one sentence attributed to Sir Francis Bacon. While is almost certain that he didn’t said that, the wisdom included in it is no less valuable or true. And when power (kratos) is given to the people (demos) we have democracy.

This article is about a simple piece of paper that makes all the above true.  As you found out from the press or the articles preceding this on, at the Bundesparteitag, the German Pirate Party debated fiercely on online General Assemblies and online voting.

But how can be a debate held with more than 1000 people in the same space, whatever the size of the room? The German pirates did it.

Every participant had a chair, a space on a table, a cable connection to high speed Internet, an agenda and a speaking system that allowed views to be expressed on the issues.

But for me as a guest there, the tool that I found most interesting was a colored sheet of paper: A4 format, folded in three and printed on both sides.

This is the first page:

It clearly explains for what is it used, what it contains and gives an explanation of symbols that can be combined to express a possible structure for online votes.

The second page looked like this:

This is the second part of the article you could have read yesterday, named "Online voting? German Pirates want it, but..." and actually I've also written a very similar article for the Czech readers in my blog, where I described more thoroughly the late development of the German Pirate Party and their issues within a wider context.

But let's get back to the general assembly of the German Pirates - the atmosphere was quite amazing - especially when you see democratic processes take place in front of your eyes. And you also feel like in a documentary with all those cameras around. But that doesn't seem so much interesting for the traditional media - more than a thousand people engaged in a long discussion and getting to a democratic compromise. They were explaining their concerns about possible flaws of the system of the online voting.

In the end they didn't agreed upon one system and the discussions will continue, namely it might be accepted at the next Bundesparteitag - but a huge part of the work has been done.

It wasn't so easy, because German Pirates use a 2/3 majority voting system - they require a wide agreement. And the one proposal that was just closest to be accepted missed only 23 votes. Probably because in the last day some tired Pirates have already left. Even such things can influence the party shaping process.

After a fast and hard fall from the heights the German Pirates are up and running again and their preferences grow up. They focus their forces now on hard-working preparations for the elections instead of internal disputes and feel motivated #ichbinmotiviert. And it pays off - the last Bundesparteitag was a success, commented as outstandingly productive as most local media stated.

There were though some reasons of the previous fall and one of them was actually the inflexibility of the modern party. Because the German Pirates, as all Pirates around the globe put much emphasis on direct democracy and at the same time their general assemblies take place only twice a year, it was virtually impossible for their leaders to take any position in reaction on current events, if nothing connected was approved by all the members.

You can imagine that it hurts your PR, when you keep saying into cameras "Sorry, we don't have an official position on this." Any opinion is better then just plain "I don't know."

Rumour has it that the Pirates are a bit unorganized. It has also been an European inside joke for centuries that Germans are, extremely and uncanningly organized.

So what happens when German Organization skills and Pirates unite? The results were amazingly well organized general assembly which again resulted in productivity and happiness.

As soon as we entered the town, Neumarkt, we were greeted by signs of the German Pirate party which led the way to the Assembly. It was a bit like treasure hunt.

The assembly comfortable hosted over 1000 pirates, participating, a well equipped press room and accessible food stalls. Everything organized by pirates.

I must say that I was very happy to see that they decided not even bother with trying to have a wireless internetconnection for everybody, but instead provided a high quality internet through wired connections. Therefore therer was no frustration because of flunky wireless connection and people could get their Twitter and facebook fix.

I was equally impressed with the organization of the food. There was something for everyone, vegan, meat-dishes, grill and beverages. It was nicely organized, even one booth which was selling coupons for food so there was never a hassel because of lack of change or something alike. It is not easy to make enough food to feed ten dozen people and I must say that the Germans did splendidly.

There is one exception though. The coffee management was a borderline crisis situation. Apparently, the coffee machine was somehow broken. The fact that there was not another coffee machine or some alternative method to make the coffee to make sure that the Black Essence of Life was available to the attendees was, in my opinion, the only flaw of the organization of the assembly. But, people could of course retire to Club Mate.

Piratenpartei!!!

 

Last weekend I visited Piratenpartei's members' congress in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Bavaria. It was a grand event - around 1500 people gathered to make important decisions about the election platform. It was a time of reconciliation - the new spokesperson Katharina Nocun and party chairman Bernd Schlömer were impressive in their way of looking ahead and their belief in the capacity of the party to work constructively towards success in the Bundesdagselections of November this year.

I am as always amazed by the organizational capacity of Germans. The halls were well-attended, the feeding opportunities supreme. Networks, press room, proper air in the big meeting hall and simultaneous sign language interpretation raised the overall impression of the event. There were many meetings with old and new friends that give me the hope, strength and motivation to continue my endeavours in Brussels. Over all, it was superinspiring and many German Pirates seemed to have a similar feeling :-)

On the Sunday morning after the final debates on opportunities for online meetings in the party I held an address:

Honourable pirates, representatives,