[Int-koordination] Fwd: Fwd: [pp-eu.board] URGENT: how shall we handle the request for a council meeting to be held in Prague in November

[Thomas Gaul <thomas.gaul AT piratenpartei.de>]

zur Kenntnis


-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Betreff: Fwd: [pp-eu.board] URGENT: how shall we handle the request for
a council meeting to be held in Prague in November
Datum: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 13:42:20 +0000 (GMT)
Von: Raymond Johansen <raymond AT piratpartiet.no>
An: Thomas Gaul <thomas.gaul AT piratenpartei.de>




From: "BJARNEMALM Mattias" <mattias.bjarnemalm AT europarl.europa.eu> To:
"muriel pirata" <muriel.pirata AT gmail.com>, "Tony Motakis"
<tvelocity AT gmail.com>, "Sven Clement" <sven.clement AT piratepartei.lu>,
"nina konvalinka" <nina.konvalinka AT gmail.com>, "Mikuláš Peksa"
<mikulas.peksa AT pirati.cz>, "Tale Haukbjørk Østrådal"
<tale AT piratpartiet.no>, "smari" <smari AT smarimccarthy.is> Cc: "pp-eu
board" <pp-eu.board AT lists.pp-international.net> Sent: Tuesday, October
24, 2017 3:17:30 PM Subject: [pp-eu.board] URGENT: how shall we handle
the request for a council meeting to be held in Prague in November


Dear all,


If you are getting this email it is because you are still a member of
the board of the European Pirate Party. If you do no longer want to
retain your seat on the board please send a reply to all stating that
you resign. This will make things easier for the remaining board.


With that said,


We have gotten a request from the German Pirate Party about holding a
council meeting in Prague 17-19 November. Mikuláš then sent out an email
claiming to speak for the board and formally inviting to that meeting. I
sent out an email clarifying that there has been no board decision on
that matter, and then there has been some continuation of the
discussion. See my attached email for the latest emails in the
conversation.


As our members are, quite understandably, frustrated with the progress
of the association I think this is something we need to urgently
discuss. As we have not had any board meeting in a while I suggest the
following process to come to a decision on the matter:


Phone meeting, tomorrow evening, 2017-10-25, at 19:00
We hold a phone conversation where we try to reach an agreement on how
to proceed tomorrow evening at 19:00. I can organize a phone conference
as long as you provide me with a number where you can reach me.


Written confirmation of the decision of the phone meeting Directly after
the meeting I'll send out any agreement reached over the phone, giving
the board 24 hours to react to the agreement. No reaction or explicit
support will be interpreted as in favour of the proposal. Should a
majority of our remaining board members favour the agreement, or if
there are no objections to the agreement it shall be considered adopted
and if that is the case I will then send it out to the council mailing
list as the formal response of the board Thursday evening. Should anyone
feel that they are better suited to be the one sending the response I am
happy to pass on this task to that person as I fear that some of the
delegates might distrust an email coming from me claiming to represent
the board.

Second phone meeting (if need be), 2017-10-30 Should we fail to reach an
agreement through the written procedure mentioned above I suggest we
hold a second phone meeting on the 30 th of October at 19:00 where any
decision taken by a majority of the present members shall be considered
adopted directly at the meeting. The meeting should then also appoint
someone who will send that decision to the council mailing list.




My proposal on how to proceed with the council meeting,


My suggestion that I will propose during the phone meeting is that we
formally reopen the current online council meeting and present it with a
procedural motion to continue despite the fact that the requested
openness of the procedural motion that halted the meeting has not been
met. As a counter-offer we also propose to limit the agenda of the
online meeting to only address the election of a new board, postponing
all other decisions to the next council meeting and tasking the newly
elected board to organize a new council meeting as soon as possible.
This will give us a new board with a proper mandate to organize a
council meeting any way they see fit (as long as they follow the
statutes), it relieves us from our overextended mandates and it makes
the organisation move forward.
I am sure my proposal can be improved upon, and I am happy to hear any
input you might have. Either by email or at the phone meeting tomorrow.
I would urge you all to make sure that whatever we decide properly
adheres to our statutes while at the same time facilitates that the
association move forward.

Resignation of Muriel


If you wonder why Muriel is not included in the recipients of this email
it is because she has formally resigned from the board 2017-10-13. See
attached email from her.
Best regards,


Mab



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-- 
internationaler Koordinator - international Coordinator
Piratenpartei Deutschland - Pirate Party of Germany


Pflugstraße 9a, D-10115 Berlin, Germany

Vorstand: Patrick Schiffer (Vorsitzender), Carsten Sawosch
(Stellvertretender Vorsitzender), Lothar Krauß (Schatzmeister), Kristos
Thingilouthis (Politischer Geschäftsführer), Steffen Heuer
(Stellvertretender Schatzmeister), Thomas Knoblich (Amtierender
Generalsekretär), Alexander Niedermeier (Stellvertretender politischer
Geschäftsführer)

--- Begin Message ---

• From: "mattias.bjarnemalm AT piratpartiet.se" <mattias.bjarnemalm AT piratpartiet.se>
• To: PPEU coordination group <pp-eu AT lists.pp-international.net>
• Cc: PPEU Board <pp-eu.board AT lists.pp-international.net>, "Council of the European Pirate Party" <pp-eu.council AT lists.pp-international.net>
• Subject: Re: [pp-eu] Delegates and Voting for the upcoming PPEU Council meeting in Praque (17.-19.11.2017)
• Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 12:39:53 +0000
• List-archive: <http://lists.pp-international.net/private/pp-eu/>
• List-id: PPEU coordination group <pp-eu.lists.pp-international.net>

Dear Thomas,

Thank you for your attempt at dialogue rather than confrontation. I am convinced that what we want is more or less the same thing: a functioning European Pirate Party as soon as possible. So I am sorry if this is a bit long, but I figured that perhaps by understanding my point of view we can reach some kind of amicable solution. Also, feel free to just call me Mattias, or even Mab, I think we've known each other long enough to be able to let go of formalities :-)

I cannot speak as to why Mikuláš sent out the invitation claiming to represent the board, but the fact is that he had no mandate from the board to do so, and his invitation was as much an act of an individual as the emails from me or from Tony. I have personally congratulated him for getting elected to the Chamber of Deputies in Czechia, the elections there was a huge success for the Czech pirates as well as pirates everywhere. But being a member of the Czech parliament does not give him any special authority to speak on behalf of the European Pirate Party.

After Mikuláš sent the invitation I had a conversation with him and he agreed that we should have a discussion in the board on how to proceed with the situation, and then the board should send out a clarification. So I would urge you to have patience with us getting that common position. But I can understand if there is limits to your patience. Should you not have heard from the board by the end of this month I will not oppose you proceeding with the meeting in Prague.

You claim in your email that as the sole active board member Mikuláš would have an implicit mandate to represent the board. And while I understand the reasoning I think there are additional requirements needing to be met for that to be true. At least from a Swedish legal point of view. I cannot speak for the Belgian law (that we are governed by), but I would be surprised if the same would not be the case there.

The first such requirement would be to establish the fact that he is indeed the only active board member. For one reason or other he failed to do this. Mikuláš has been as inactive as most board members, and before sending out his invitation he hadn't participated in the internal discussions of the board since the beginning of the year. He sent an email to the board on 31 January this year, and he participated in our online informal discussions up until 24th of May this year. After that he has, understandingly, been to preoccupied by the national election preparations to be able to participate in the board discussions.

Meanwhile, the rest of the board continued with organizing the online Council meeting that then got paused by a procedural motion by the German delegation. After that the board held discussions on how to achieve the requirements set on the meeting by that procedural motion. By this time the active board members where reduced to myself, Tony and Muriel. The conversation dwindled by the end of July this year as neither of us had any clear solution to the problem. After that we had a short conversation in the board on another matter in August, still without Mikuláš participation.

So for Mikuláš to assess that he was the only active board member without in any way reaching out to any of the three board members who had stayed active when he himself actually became inactive is in my opinion not sufficient to grant him the ability to speak for the board.

Had he invited the board to discuss the matter beforehand and we had failed to show up it would have been an entirely different matter. But Mikuláš did no such thing. He did not consult, nor inform, the board before claiming to speak on it's behalf. This is clearly not in accordance with any set of proper conduct of a board member, a criticism that I personally gave Mikuláš after the fact. And I can only assume that his actions where out of stress and frustration.

You claim that all board members should act on behalf of member interests. I totally agree with that statement. But I am also convinced that it is in the interest of the members to be certain that no individual member of the board will claim to represent the organization in any way without a proper mandate from the board or from the Council.

I hope this explains why I find it imperative that the board make a decision on how to proceed before any further action is taken. And, though your concerns about perpetual delays are most certainly valid, I hope that you can accept to cease with any further preparations of the Prague meeting until the board has come to an agreement on how to proceed, or the end of this month if no such agreement should be reached.

 

Moving on to the rest of your email.

you state that six member parties deem the council meeting to be valid. I am convinced that you truly believe this. But you have to understand why I am not convinced. The request to hold the council meeting in Prague was sent by the delegates from the German pirate party, with a claim to represent the other five parties. After I objected that the other parties needed to send in a request through someone formally apointed or elected to represent them in such matters none of those five parties has done this. Even if they would not agree with my assessment surely they would want to send a clarification just to make sure that there are no uncertainties regarding their support for this specific council meeting in Prague?

And even if they supported the request to hold the meeting in Prague, did they also support the decision by the German delegation to deem an invitation sent by one individual board member as a valid invitation? Have you gotten back to them regarding this? And if so, can you provide the board with any documentation that shows that this is the case?

These are things that needs to be clarified before I can take any statement regarding the position of other member parties for granted. Perhaps you can help me in getting such clarifications from the other parties you've been in touch with? It would be even better if you could get them involved in the conversation on these mailinglists so they could voice their position themselves. Not even the presumed hosts, the Czech pirate party, has in any way communicated about their party's opinion on the matter.

Regarding your remark regarding the success of the Czech pirates and using their results as a momentum I totally agree with you on that. I am not opposed to hold a physical Council meeting in Prague as such if it prepared properly and if the invitation follows the statutes of the association. I have not had the pleasure of visiting the Czech pirates since 2013, and would love to do another visit.  I have also had discussions with your member of the European Parliament, the only elected pirate on the European level, on how to best use the Czech results to promote pirate policies. And I have urged the young pirates of Europe to take action to ensure that they finally get a Czech young pirate association as a member there.

In my capacity as former member of the board of the Swedish Pirate party I have ensured that the Swedish pirates sent a press release to the Swedish press on the success of the Czech pirates, and I intend to make sure that we get representatives from the Czech pirate parliamentary group to attend our Piratdalen event in Sweden next summer.

Finally, you ask me what I propose. And while it might not be what you had hoped for you my proposal is that you let the board discuss the request for a Council meeting and how it wants to proceed. My main point in all my emails have been that individual board members should not act or propose things by themselves, but rather take that time and energy and invest it in the board to make sure that the decisions taken are democratic and fair.

I intend to send my suggestion to the board on how the board should proceed today, and I am hopeful that I'll get the board to come to some agreement before the end of this month. If you want to help me in this. Please feel free to poke any board member you are in contact with so that they see and respond to my email and participate in the discussion.

I am not your enemy. the board is not your enemy. If you continue the line of dialogue you started in your last email, and that I have tried to adhere to in this reply, I am sure we will be able to get the organization moving forward. And with way less conflict and friction than would otherwise be the case.

Best regards,

Mab

For your convenience, the current board of the European Pirate Party.

• Smári McCarthy, chairperson
• Tale Haukbjørk, vice chairperson
• Sven Clement, treassurer
• Mattias Bjärnemalm, member of the board without an appointed office
• Nina Konvalinka, member of the board without an appointed office
• Antonios Motakis, member of the board without an appointed office
• Mikuláš Peksa, member of the board without an appointed office

Formed board members who have resigned from office:

• Muriel Rovira Esteva, resigned as vice-chairperson 2017-10-13

 

 

On 2017-10-24 06:31, Thomas Gaul wrote:

Dear Matthias Bjärnemalm!

Thank you for your personal inside about it.

The board member Mikuláš Peksa and freshly elected Member to the Chamber
of Deputies in Czech did invite to the very council meeting after you
opposed to it in public.

As there had been no board meeting at all for months, nobody from the
board doing anything, except the personal comment from Tony (which I
very much appreciate) the board of PPEU ought to be recognised as being
inactive. In such cases one acting member of a board is legally accepted
as the inviting person. Considering it is about the organisation and not
about personal matters or opions. All board members should act on behalf
of member interests.

If the member parties (six of them already think so in the very open)
that the council meeting is deemed to be valid, you should just do one
thing: promote it.

And maybe even you as a former member of the board of the Pirate Party
of Sweden should push it as the result the Czech Pirates just achieved
should be taken as a momentum for bringing us Pirates to where we belong.

As a last question to you: what do you propose? En attendant Godot? Or
do you have any better plan? So far no, you just oppose to a council
meeting with no better ideas at hand.

We see us in Prague! Let us bring PPEU to where it really belongs, to
the real success of our Pirate ideas!

Best regards

Thomas
as one of the organisers





Am 24.10.2017 um 00:30 schrieb mattias.bjarnemalm AT piratpartiet.se:

Dear all, just a formal reminder that there has been no decision by the board to hold a council meeting in Prague. The event Thomas is talking about is not recognized by the board as a council meeting for the European Pirate Party. It has no legitimacy, and is in violation of the statutes of the association. Best regards, Mattias Bjärnemalm Board member, European Pirate Party On 2017-10-24 00:12, Thomas Gaul wrote:

Hi! First of all - and I believe I am speaking on behalf of us all: The Pirate Party of Czech did rock last weekend! Our best wishes to the elected! And a special thanks for all who did help you having this kind of success! We are still stunned but you are the greatest! Shake the system for the better! But the Council meeting is up front. I took the liberty to calculate a bit having article 15 of the PPEU statutes in mind. Considerating you achieved 546,393 popular votes, hitting 10.8 %. A simple calculation gives: 4 delegates and 5 Votes

(1 vote as the very basis. Topping 150,000 and 400,000 votes add two more to it. As the mark hit 10.8 % two supplementary votes add add on to it [for topping 4.0;8.0 each]) And as there had been other elections and Iceland is due this weekend, we all have to recalcute the number of votes and delegates. If you'd like to help, please send in (or publish it on some of these mailing lists) the relevent numbers according to article 15 of the statutes a.s.a.p. (<http://ppeu.net/wiki/doku.php?id=statutes:final [1]>) It is necessary for the nomination of delegates of each member party. Thank you! Let us celebrate in Prague and bring PPEU to where it belongs. To the very top! Best regards Thomas as one of the organisers of the PPEU-Council meeting P.S.: the sooner any changes to delegates and votes are known, the earlier we all know about all the formality stuff. Some table will then give you an overview. _______________________________________________ pp-eu mailing list pp-eu AT lists.pp-international.net http://lists.pp-international.net/listinfo/pp-eu [2] Links: ------ [1] http://ppeu.net/wiki/doku.php?id=statutes:final [2] http://lists.pp-international.net/listinfo/pp-eu _______________________________________________ pp-eu mailing list pp-eu AT lists.pp-international.net http://lists.pp-international.net/listinfo/pp-eu

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--- End Message ---

--- Begin Message ---

• From: Muriel Rovira Esteva <muriel AT pirata.cat>
• To: Council of the European Pirate Party <pp-eu.council AT lists.pp-international.net>, "List for international coordinators of the Pirate Parties of the EU" <pp-eu.coordinators AT lists.pp-international.net>
• Subject: [pp-eu.coordinators] Resignation
• Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2017 22:26:50 +0000
• List-archive: <http://lists.pp-international.net/pipermail/pp-eu.coordinators/>
• List-id: List for international coordinators of the Pirate Parties of the EU <pp-eu.coordinators.lists.pp-international.net>

Dear all,

Here I present my resignation as a co-vicechairperson of the European Pirates Board.

Regards,

    Muriel Rovira Esteva

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--- End Message ---