We PIRATES stipulate that in all negotiations of the European Union on trade agreements the following conditions which are consistent with our principles and convictions will be met:

We will campaign for the need for consent of the European Parliament in trade policy instead of just a consultation right. Trade agreements contain political decisions that are important and difficult to change. Therefore the only democratically legitimated body in the EU needs to have equal rights as the European Commission in trade policy.

The European Parliament via its Committee on International Trade (INTA) shall participate as an equal partner of the European Commission in negotiations of trade agreements.

The European Parliament needs to be informed right from the start and comprehensively about the state and the strategy of negotiations.

All documents concerning the negotiations of a trade agreement have to be made available to the European Parliament as well as the public. All negotiations and hearings of stakeholders shall be conducted in the public eye. We demand that all results of the consultations, especially submissions by stakeholders, shall be published.

Instead of exerting pressure to privatise public services through trade agreements, any decision about such privatisations shall be left to the direct democratic control of the people. We PIRATES object to any privatisations which derive solely from trade agreements and demand that for such a decision a referendum shall be mandatory.

At the moment trade agreements mainly take into account the interests of global enterprises, while small and medium-sized companies rarely benefit. On the contrary, those companies will be increasingly ousted from the market. We want to change that.

Trade agreements shall fix mandatory social and ecological standards. If breached, every party to the agreement shall have the right to adopt punitive tariffs and other appropriate anti-dumping measures. We PIRATES will advocate for the inclusion of such standards in trade agreements, especially those of the WTO. Violations of such standards shall be tried by the WTO Panel.

Trade agreements with developing countries shall take into account their structural and economical weaknesses by offering them favorable conditions for mutual trade. These advantagous conditions shall especially apply for the trade with agricultural products and raw materials. There also need to be special adjustments made in the area of patent regulations. We PIRATES want to champion this cause.

We PIRATES strive for a revision of the TRIPS Agreement in favour of reducing exclusive rights on immaterial goods, especially in patent and copyright regulations, in accordance with our programmatic goals. The same shall apply to other trade agreements which include similar or even more far-reaching regulations on patents and copyright (TRIPS+). We will only give our consent to new trade agreements, if they do not contain regulations about immaterial goods which are contrary to our convictions on the matter.

We want to work towards provisions in trade agreements which support the use and development of open formats and open source software and regulate the mutual recognition of liberal licence modells like Creative Commons.

We PIRATES consider self-determination of the people and privacy as self-evident. Therefore they also need to be respected and promoted in the context of trade agreements. As those principles apply to all people, the EU has to make sure that trade agreements will not allow their trading partners to breach them. On this account, we refuse to accept control mechanisms in trade agreements which contradict this position.

H) Degradation of Private Monopolies and Opening Markets (additional points proposed for the PPDE draft)

* The EU and other industrialised countries should not force (e.g. at the occasion of the negotiation of trade agreements) less developed countries to accept IP provisions that are likely to be detrimental to the essential needs of health, education and development opportunities. They should not bully countries either that lawfully use the safeguards of existing agreements for public health or any other objectives (e.g. compulsory licenses of medicines).

K) Taking Into Account the Interests of Small and Medium-Sized Companies (proposal to add the following introductory statement to this section of the PPDE draft)

The EU should be more active in enforcing anti-monopoly and pro-competition policies.

1.14.1.3 Privatisations only after a Referendum remove paragraph

1.14.1.5 Social and Ecological Standards remove paragraph

1.14.1.6 Trade Agreements Between Trading Partners With Huge Economic Disparities remove paragraph