The Pirate Party of Belgium ( nl, Piratenpartij, french: Parti Pirate) is a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
. Based on the model of the Swedish
Pirate Party, it supports reform of
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
law, the abolition of
patents, and respect for privacy. It was a founding member of
Pirate Parties International
Pirate Parties International (PPI) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Formed in 2010, it serves as a worldwide organization for Pirate Parties, currently representing 3 ...
.
Electoral participation
2010 federal elections
The party participated for the first time in the
federal elections of 13 June 2010, but only for the electoral district of
Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde
The area within Belgium known as Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde encompasses the bilingual— French and Dutch—Brussels-Capital Region, which coincides with the arrondissement of Brussels-Capital and the surrounding Dutch-speaking area of Halle-Vil ...
, where they received 0.26% of the votes. Their only candidate (apart from successors) was Jurgen Rateau.
2012 local elections
The party presented lists at
municipal and provincial elections in Belgium in 2012, in 14 municipalities and 26 provincial districts. The provincial results were generally around 1% in Flanders and 3% in Walloon.
The best result they obtained was 3.42% in provincial district of Tournai by Paul Bossu and at the communal level, 5.16% at Louvain-la-Neuve, the list led by Lionel Dricot. The pirates at Ottigines list-Louvain-la-Neuve were only 14 votes short of a seat.
2014 federal and regional elections
In the
federal election of 25 May 2014, the Pirate Party participated in the Flemish constituencies of Antwerp (0.98%), East Flanders (0.82%) and Limburg (0.71%) as well as the Walloon constituencies of Hainaut (0.80%) and Liège (0.63%).
In the
simultaneous regional elections, the Pirate Party had candidates for the four major constituencies (i.e. not Limburg or Brussels) for the Flemish Parliament, and received 25,986 votes (0.62%) in total. For the Walloon Parliament, the party only competed in the constituency of Nivelles where they received 3,612 votes (1.54% in the constituency, 0.18% for the entire election). Their result was again strongest in Louvain-la-Neuve with 2.49% in that municipality. The Pirate Party also competed in the French language group for the Brussels Parliament, where they received 3,026 votes (0.74%).
2018 local elections
In the
2018 Belgian local elections, the Pirate Party presented a shared list with
Volt Belgium under the name "''Paars''" ("Purple") in several municipalities, gaining 1,476 in Antwerp and less than one thousand in Brussels.
References
External links
Official website
{{Belgian political parties
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
Political parties in Belgium