The Pirate Party of Belgium (, ) is a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. Based on the model of the Swedish

Pirate Party Pirate Party is a label adopted by various Political party, political parties worldwide that share a set of values and policies focused on Civil and political rights, civil rights in the digital age. The fundamental principles of Pirate Partie ...

, it supports reform of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal 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, ...

law, the abolition of

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

, and respect for privacy. It was a founding member of

Pirate Parties International Pirate Parties International (PPI) is an Political international, international Nonprofit organization, non-profit and non-governmental organization with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Formed in 2010, it serves as a worldwide organizati ...

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 Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (; ) is a judicial arrondissement encompassing the bilingual— French and Dutch—Brussels-Capital Region, which coincides with the administrative arrondissement of Brussels-Capital and the surrounding Dutch-speaking ...

, 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 the 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 it received 3,612 votes (1.54% in the constituency and 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 Belgian provincial, municipal and district elections of 2018 took place on Sunday 14 October 2018. They are organised by the respective regions: * Brussels with List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, 19 municipalities * Flemish ...

, 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

Political parties in Belgium