PPEU wiki

Minutes

Meeting 9 of the 9th PPEU board 16.1.2025, 18:30 CET 17:30 UTC Meeting is remote

Members of the Board
C: Florian Roussel
VC: Sara Hjalmarsson
VC: Marek Barbuš
TR: Alessandro Ciofini
BM: Giuseppe Calandra (cal)
BM: Björn Leví Gunnarsson
BM: Jan Mareš
BM: Babak Tubis

Standing invitations
Mattias Bjärnemalm, Pirate Parties Network Officer

Meeting opened at: 18:32
Meeting chaired by: Florian
Secretary for this meeting: Sara
Recording: https://owncloud.ag-technik.de/s/k4GeRD22X7faBkk
Pad: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/Board9MeetingX
RoP: https://wiki.ppeu.net/doku.php?id=documents:rop2023

Participants:

C: Florian Roussel
VC: Sara Hjalmarsson
VC: Marek Barbuš
TR: Alessandro Ciofini
BM: Giuseppe Calandra (cal)
BM: Babak Tubis
BM: Jan Mareš (joined at 18:45)

Excused:
BM: Björn Leví Gunnarsson

Not excused:

Guests:
Thomas Gaul PP-DE
Schoresch Davoodi, PP-DE
Bastian
PiratesOnAir

Agenda:
0. Formalities
0.1 Election of meeting chair
0.2 Election of meeting Secretary
0.3. Approval of the agenda
0.4. Approval of the minutes of the last meeting: insert wiki link here
0.5 Confirmation of any decisions taken in between meetings
0.6 Written reports
1. Decisions without discussions
1.1 Time and place for next board meeting
2. Decisions with discussions
2.1 Agenda for the next Council meeting
2.2 2024 Report on the activities of the Board and its members
2.3 2024 Annual accounts
2.4 2025 Budget
2.5 2025 Work plan
2.6 Preparatory discussion meeting before the Council meeting
3. Discussions without decisions
3.1 Update on the Stop Destroying Videogames ECI
3.2 Organisation structure for volunteers supporting the work of the European Pirates
4. Any other business

Discussions in bold cursive are priority discussions and can, if needed, be discussed before point 1 of the agenda

The meeting is scheduled for a maximum of 60 minutes. It can be extended by consensus
—

Minutes:

0.1 Election of meeting chair

The meeting elected Florian as meeting chair

0.2 Election of meeting Secretary

The meeting elected Sara as meeting secretary and agreed that we would work collectively on the minutes in the pad

0.3. Approval of the agenda:

Yes: Florian, Alessandro, Sara, Marek,Babak, cal
No:
Abstain:

0.4. Approval of the minutes of the last meetings

https://wiki.ppeu.net/doku.php?id=pp-eu:board-meeting09_08

Yes: Florian, Alessandro, Sara, Marek, Babak
No:
Abstain: cal, Jan

0.5 Confirmation of any decisions taken in between meetings

Any decisions taken by email, in mattermost or Discourse, or by any other means shall be listed below, including time and place for the decision. They shall be confirmed by a vote of the Board.

Decision: The Board appoints Cal as contact person to the Stop Killing Games ECI team on the European Pirate Party’s behalf.
Decided by vote on Discourse 2024-12-19: https://discourse.european-pirateparty.eu/t/9th-board-vote-appointing-of-contact-person-for-the-eci-stop-killing-games/815

Yes: Florian, Babak, Sara, Marek, cal, Alessandro
No:
Abstain:

0.6 Written reports

Any written reports or other updates that has been submitted before the start of the meeting shall be added here. Verbal reports given during the meeting go under 4.0 (AOB).

0.6.1 Report Pirate Parties Network Officer.

- It is now clear that my current role will end on 20th of March this year at the latest. As such we will need to find a solution for how to keep up the collaboration with our team in the European Parliament after this point.
- I have been coordinating with the Stop Destroying Videogames ECI, on behalf of the European Pirates. See separate discussion below for more info

1. Decisions without discussions

1.1 Time and place for next board meeting

Background:
The date for the next board meeting has been set in the Meeting Calendar to 13th of February. No specific time has been set, but the standar time for board meetings is 18:30 CET.
The Meeting Calendar can be found here: https://discourse.european-pirateparty.eu/t/meeting-calendar-for-board-and-council-meetings-for-the-rest-of-the-year/677

Proposal:
The next board meeting shall take place 13th of February 2025, 18:30 CET.

Yes: Florian, Babak, Marek, cal, Alessandro, Sara
No:
Abstain:

2. Decisions with discussions

2.1 Agenda for the next Council meeting

Background:
The agenda for the next council meeting shall be sent out with the formal invitation one month before the start of the Council meeting at the latest (art. 14(7)). A proposal has been drafted on Discourse: ¹⁾

Proposal:
The board adopts the following agenda for the 18th Council meeting: https://discourse.european-pirateparty.eu/t/draft-proposal-for-the-agenda-for-the-18th-council-meeting

Yes: Florian, Alessandro,Sara,Babak cal, Marek, Jan
No:
Abstain:

2.2 2024 Report on the activities of the Board and its members

Background:
The board shall report annually on to the Council on the activities of the Board and its members. This report shall also contain all political and organisational developments and policies of the European Pirate Party. (art16(4).
This reporting has not always taken place in accordance with the statutes in the past.

Proposal:
The board delegates to Sara to draft an annual report on the activities of the Board and its members, to be published on the Discourse February 6th at the latest, and formally adopted by the board at the next board meeting.

Yes: Florian, Babak, Alessandro,Sara, cal, Marek, Jan
No:
Abstain:

2.3 2024 annual accounts

Background:
The board shall adopt the annual accounts for 2024 and submit them for approval by the Council (art.21(2)), They shall be communicated to the members of the Council at least 2 weeks before the Council.(art.21(4))
A preliminary version of the accounts were discussed at the 17th Council meeting.

Proposal:
The board adopts the annual accounts found here: https://wiki.ppeu.net/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=documents:2024_annual_account.pdf, with the small changes of replacing the title “2024” with “2024 Annual Accounts” and “Current results” on the thirs line in the document with “final result”
The board delegates to the Treasurer to ensure that they are communicated to the members in line with the statutes.

Yes: Florian, Sara, Alessandro, cal
No:
Abstain: Babak

2.4 2025 budget

Background:
The board shall adopt a proposal for a budget for 2025 and submit it for approval by the Council (art.21(2)), They shall be communicated to the members of the Council at least 2 weeks before the Council.(art.21(4))
A draft budget was approved at the 17th Council meeting.

Proposal:
The board adopts the proposed 2025 budget found here https://wiki.ppeu.net/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=documents:2025_budget.pdf
The board delegates to the Treasurer to ensure that the proposed budget is communicated to the members in line with the statutes.

Yes: Florian, Sara, Marek, cal, Alessandro
No:
Abstain: Babak

2.5 2025 work plan

Background:
The statutes don't oblige the board to propose a work plan for the year to be approved by the Council, but it does state that the board “is responsible for the management of the European Pirate Party within the budget and the guidelines approved by the Council.” (art 16(4). one way to ensure clarity for the board through such guidelines would be to have the first Council meeting adopt and annual Work Plan for the organisation, to function as guidelines for the activites of the board. This would address the lack of direction that has sometimes been a problem for the board, and it would clarify the role of the board in the organisation.

Proposal:
The board delegates to Sara to draft a 2025 Work Plan for the European Pirate Party, to be published on the Discourse February 6th at the latest, and formally adopted by the board at the next board meeting.

Yes: Florian, Alessandro, Babak, Jan, cal, Sara
No:
Abstain:

2.6 Preparatory meeting before the Council meeting

Background:
It has often been difficult to have a productive conversation about the annual accounts, budget, and the reporting from the Board during the Council meetings, due to time constrains and the format of the meetings. To address this problem we could organize an information session ahead of the meeting, inviting anyone to come ask questions to representatives of the board, and make suggestions for improvements to the documents presented to the Council. For this to be successful the meeting should take place after the annual accounts and budget are made available to the members, and before the final board meeting before the Council. This will allow the board to take suggestions into considerations and adapt their proposals accordingly before the start of the meeting.

Proposal:
The board delegates to Mab to arrange an online information meeting on Jitsi, between the 6th and 13th of February, where any pirate is invited to come to give input on the following topics from the Council meeting:

2024 Report on the activities of the Board and its member
2024 Annual accounts
2025 Budget
2025 Work plan

Yes: Sara, Babak, Florian, Alessandro, cal,Jan
No:
Abstain:

3. Discussions without decisions

3.1 Update on the Stop Destroying Videogames ECI

Background: The board decided, based on input from the previous Council meeting, that the European Pirates should endorse this ECI, and delegated to Mab to help coordinate a press release, and manage the relationship with the organizers. This press release can be found here: https://european-pirateparty.eu/european-pirates-endorse-citizens-initiative/

After the endorsement it has become apparent that there's tensions within the ECI organizer team/SKG Community, with different factions operating mostly independent of each other. The most obvious example of this is that there is now two separate Discord servers tied to the SKG Community, with no clear communication between the two.

Discussion: (provided by Mab) a) In my view, our best course of action is to aim to stay on good terms with everyone involved, and make sure that we always promote the ECI, rather than any specific indivudals or part of the community. This would mean collaborating with everyone who is actively reaching out to us, and only engage with activites directly linked to the ECI. Is the board in agreement with this?

The board is in agreement with this course of action.

b) How do we get our Member organisations to actively engage with the ECI to promote it?

Suggestion 1: Provide (localized) information for the local parties to act on.

Suggestion 2: Using material we already have.

Florian clarified that we can use the material already provided by the ECI networks. We informed via email and press release. We did not push it into our social media.

Mab observes the local (member) parties will have better reach than the PPEU, so we should encourage the local parties to spread the campaign

Sara: with experience from the Chat Control communications, it is not easy to get parties active without ready made material.

3.2 Organisation structure for volunteers supporting the work of the European Pirates

Background:
There has been a lot of discussions in this board, and in previous board about how to best structure the organisation of the European Pirate Party. Often the conversation has boiled down to questions about how to attract, retain and engage volunteers to the organisation. So far there has been no formal proposal adopted on how to move forward, and discussions about the organisation has often got intermingled with a discussion about the statutes (which are found here: https://european-pirateparty.eu/statutes/). For simplicity, this discussion is intended to only address changes that can be made without changing the statutes.

Discussion: (provided by Mab)
The main obstacle for building an organisation seems to be the lack of a clear mandate for someone to build and lead that organisation. Article 16(2) of the statutes states that the board (jointly) hold the responsibility for “the activities of the European Pirate Party’s office.” But what said “office” encompass is not clarified in the statutes. Article 16(9) further states “For the purposes of certain actions and duties or everyday management functions, the Board may transfer its powers to one or more members of the Board or even another person, who may or may not be a member of the Association. The powers of the said person(s) shall be defined precisely by the Board; the Board may at any time revoke these powers with immediate effect.”. This right to delegation has rarely been used by the board, but would allow the board to mandate one or more person(s) to create any organisational structure (i.e. the European Pirate Party’s office.), and delegate any tasks and responsibilites it sees fit to said individual(s).
It could be valuable to discuss the possibility of this board using article 16(9) to create a post of Secretary General for the European Pirate Party, and delegating to this individual to build the “office” as they see fit. Within the limitations of the mandate that the board decides to delegate to said individual, and with a clear obligation to report to the board on a regular basis any decisions or actions taken.

Possible timeline moving forward:

17th of January: discussion with member parties about the idea of creating a Secretary General is set up on Discourse
6th of February: proposal presented to the board
13th of February: decision taken by the board to create the position
23rd of February: position confirmed by the Council by inclusion into the annual work plan for 2025
24th of February: Call for applications open on Discourse
13th of March: Call for application closes, the 10th Board elects the Secretary General and formally decides on the delegation of powers in line with Article 16(9)
14th of March (or later if agreed): Secretary General formally assume the duties

Sara suggested providing documenting for the secretary general role, both so the responsibilies and manadate is clear and so there is a physical

4. AOB

4.1 Sara Hjalmarrson will travel Europe

Belgium (Brussels) - 28th January to 10th-12th of February Germany - 12th of February to the 16th of February Iceland - End of February to 6th of March Norway - 6th of Match to 10th of March Switzerland France - 24th April - mid-May. Czech Republic (Finland)

Meeting closed at: 19:47 CET
Next meeting: Feb. 13th, 2025, 18:30 CET

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