The Pirate Party of Austria (german: Piratenpartei Österreichs, PIRAT) 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 political ideology ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

and part of the global

Pirate Party Pirate Party is a label adopted by Political party, political parties around the world. Pirate parties support Civil and political rights, civil rights, direct democracy (including e-democracy) or alternatively Participatory democracy, partici ...

movement which advocates what has come to be known as

Pirate politics Pirate Party is a label adopted by political parties around the world. Pirate parties support civil rights, direct democracy (including e-democracy) or alternatively participation in government, reform of copyright and patent law, free shar ...

. It is mostly known for opposing the

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a plurilateral agreement, multilateral treaty for the purpose of establishing international standards for intellectual property rights enforcement that did not enter into force. The agreement aims t ...

. The party was founded by

Florian Hufsky Florian Hufsky (November 13, 1986 – December 16, 2009) was an Austrian new media artist, Computer Hacker, political activist, founder and former board member of the Pirate Party of Austria. He studied graphic design at the University of Applied ...

and Jürgen 'Juxi' Leitner during the run-up to the 2006 election in Austria, but failed to gather the necessary signatures to contest the election. On 14 March 2010, the PPÖ ran for municipal elections for its first time in the city of

Bregenz Bregenz (; gsw, label= Vorarlbergian, Breagaz ) is the capital of Vorarlberg, the westernmost state of Austria. The city lies on the east and southeast shores of Lake Constance, the third-largest freshwater lake in Central Europe, between Switze ...

and received 1.62% of the vote, however failed to win any seats. Christopher Clay, Marlies Wawra, Rodrigo Jorquera, Lukas Daniel Klausner and André Igler have been elected on 28 October 2012 to board members in the General Assembly of the Pirate Party Austria. Albert Gugerell has been elected as treasurer. In January Alexander Ofer, former member of the Tyrolean State Pirate Party, was expelled together with all state party members. After Ofers entering of the

city council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...

the Pirate Party announced to come up to the ''Pirate Party Tyrol'' (Ofers new party he had founded before getting expelled. They successfully ran for a post in the city of Innsbruck). But Ofer said "Wir wollen mit der Piratenpartei Österreichs nichts zu tun haben, das sind Pfuscher." ''("We don't want to have anything to do with the Pirate Party of Austria , they are botchers"''). In 2012 the

social-liberal Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...

daily newspaper ''

Der Standard ''Der Standard'' is an Austrian daily newspaper published in Vienna. History and profile ''Der Standard'' was founded by Oscar Bronner as a financial newspaper and published its first edition on 19 October 1988. German media company Axel Springe ...

'' stated that the Pirates could be a competitor against

The Greens The Greens or Greens may refer to: Current political parties * Australian Greens, also known as ''The Greens'' * Greens of Andorra * Greens of Bosnia and Herzegovina * Greens of Burkina * Greens (Greece) * Greens of Montenegro *Greens of Serbia *G ...

and the Freedom Party, and could become the new

Liberal Forum The Liberal Forum (german: Liberales Forum, LiF) was a centrist, Liberalism in Austria, liberal political party in Austria. The party was active from February 1993 to January 2014, when the party merged into NEOS – The New Austria. A member ...

, with the Pirate Party Austria is heading for National Assembly in 2013 and EU Elections in 2014. In municipal elections in Graz on 25 November 2012, the Pirates gained 2.68% of the vote and one seat. On 4 March 2014 Salzburg Piratenpartei started a

whistleblowing A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

initiative; at the base of the initiative is the use of the

GlobaLeaks GlobaLeaks is an open-source, free software intended to enable secure and anonymous whistleblowing initiatives. History The project started on 15 December 2010 and the first software prototype was announced on 6 September 2011. Relevant figure ...

software that enables anonymous whistleblowing.

External links

Official website

References

{{Austrian political parties

Pirate Party of Austria