[Int-koordination] German Proposals to Change the CEEP

[Martina Pöser <martina.poeser AT bremen.piratenpartei.de>]

Dear all,

here are the German Proposals for amendments of the CEEP. I am sorry that we are a bit late ourselves, but we had to work our way through 27 amendment proposals of PP-CAT first!


1. We will veto the text on energy policy, even if all the text is taken from the German proposal. There has been a heated discussion in the German Pirate Party about the question, if  we should have any position on energy policy at all, if we don't have a clear commitment against nuclear power as a part of it. As the opinion was divided and it is a topic close to the heart of many German Pirates we will rather veto the topic than lose support for the CEEP as a whole. 

    2. We propose to strike out the last half-sentence in the topic "Removal of Unfair Barriers":

    

    We PIRATES want a larger and more direct participation of the citizens in the policy debate and decision making process, both individually and collectively. We therefore demand the removal of unfair barriers to the participation of new political parties in the EU elections, such as the requirement of collecting a certain number of signatures in order to stand for election.

    

    The reason is that there is no clear position of the German Pirates on the collection of signatures to stand for election. Some Pirates are in favour of having to collect a reasonable amount of signatures to show that the party is a serious one and others are against it completely. If we strike it out, we don't need to decide on the dispute and after all, it doesn't add anything to the point, but illustrating it.

    

    3. We like to reintroduce the following topic which was rejected in Athens:

Legal Guarantee for Anonymous, Pseudonymous and Autonymous Access to Network Services            

We PIRATES reject a constraint to use legal names on the Internet. 

              

We are committed to guarantee  citizens the anonymous access to the Internet and the users of social networks and similar services a pseudonymous and an autonymous access to these services by law. The freedom of _expression_ and self-definition of a person may not be curtailed for reasons of ostensible safety. 

And suggest as an alternative proposal instead:

Legal Guarantee for Anonymous Access to the Internet

We PIRATES reject a constraint to use legal names on the Internet. 

              

We are committed to guarantee citizens the anonymous access to the Internet by law. The  freedom of _expression_ and self-definition of a person may not be curtailed for reasons of ostensible safety. 

Like this we will leave out the disputed point about how to identify trolls in forums and kick them out effectively.

4. We suggest to name the document as "Athens Declaration" (or any other name similar to this) to show that it is in the tradition of the Uppsala Declaration.

    

As an introductory text before the Preamble, we like to also add the following text:

    

"We, the European Pirate Parties, hereby declare,

building up on the foundations of the Uppsala Declaration of 2008,

fulfilling the promise of the Prague Declaration of 2012,

that we go into the coming elections of the European Parliament in the year 2014 united.

We will use the following topics that we identified as being in our common interests as the base platform to work together on European-wide election campaigns and later also in the European Parliament.

We, the Undersigned, commit ourselves to strive to incorporate the following topics also into our national election programmes:"

We need to make sure that it is clear that this text is not a national election programme which needs to be accepted by the GA. There has been a big discussion on the nature of the text that we have been producing in Athens. To ensure that there will be no misunderstandings we would like to add this text.

5. We also suggest as an alternative to change the Preamble in the following way:

"(...) common  European cultural political space while preserving the cultural diversitywhile protecting existing cultures.

6. Word change in section "Democracy Add-On for Europe":

To: “Changes in EU primary legislation (e.g. a treaty) shall only come into effect, if a majority of EU citizens approve in a simultaneous vote across the EU,”


7. Change reference to European directive in section "Ensure Everyone's Privacy":

“The European Data Retention Directive 2006/24/EC dictates watching and storing information about all telecommunications connections and also about movement of all cellphones.”

8. Convert bullet point into sentence in fourth paragraph of section   "Systematic Evaluation  of Existing Surveillance Powers and Programmes"

From: “Prohibition of electronic and biological spying.” 

To: "We will strive for the..."

9. Word change in section "Mandatory Use of Free Software in Public Administration"

From: “We will initiate the migration of the public sector to  free software  which doesn't have security risks rising from the hidden  code and does  not bring the dependency on a specific supplier.” 

To: “We will [drive or implement] the migration of the public sector to  free software which doesn't have security risks rising from the hidden  code and does not bring the dependency on a specific supplier.

10. Word change in sixth paragraph of section "Copyright"

From: “Social life, increasingly taking place in digital spaces, must not be   restricted by rights to immaterial goods. “Fair-Use Regulations” will   ensure that.” 

To: “Social life, increasingly taking place in digital spaces, must not be  restricted by rights to immaterial goods. “Fair-Use Regulations” shall   (will) ensure that.”

11. Word change in section "Degradation of Private Monopolies and Opening Markets"

From: “The increasing international   competition also leads to an  increasingly misappropriated use of the patent system, where you often  can not see a compensation for the   society any more.” 

To: “The increasing  international competition also leads to an increasingly  misappropriated  use of the patent system, where you often can not see a sufficient compensation for the society any more that balances the negative impact.”

12. Remove repetition in section "Degradation of Private Monopolies and Opening Markets"

The crossed bit is repeated again below: 

”(Patenting of trivialities or even) The  blocking of progress by patents should be prevented at all  costs.”

"At all costs" could mean even with military means. It feels a bit strong for us on second thought.


I'm not sure, if I will be able to set it all up in a nice way on the wiki in time for tomorrow's conference, but I'll do my best.

Best regards,

Martina