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Anastasia Balezdrova

Greek pirates are ready to participate in elections that will not be held soon in their opinion. Earlier today, members of the party filed statutes in the Supreme Court. When it is approved, they will be able to request the support of Greek voters.

Subsequently the pirates held their first press conference and presented the basic positions of the party, about which GRReporter informed its readers around a month ago. Its objectives are to protect the privacy and personal freedoms of individuals from the intervention of states and companies, to change the copyright law and reduce the duration of its protection and to support the free use of digital copies for private and non-commercial use.

"The party does not place itself in the obsolete axis left - political centre - right. The pirate party was born in the 21st century to act as the operating system of our society by providing each person with the opportunity for free expression, participation in the digital world and taking decisions about our common future," said Anestis Samourkasidis, responsible for public relations.

As we have already noted, the pirate party has no chairman. It has a management body and its members are equal. One of them is the developer Yiannis Panagopoulos. He was part of the original group that tried to establish a pirate party in Greece in 2009. According to Yiannis, there is renewed interest in establishing the party in the country, especially after the success of the pirate party in Germany. "This is an attempt of young people, who do not find themselves in the existing political parties. I think too many people in Greece do not trust the political system anyway. We realized that it is difficult for our ideas to reach the people if we are outside, so we decided to make this move from inside the system."

Dimitris Raptis is a developer and is 27 years old. He is half-Swedish and says that he has been familiar with pirate parties ever since the formation of the party in Sweden. "From the moment that my work has been connected to the Internet, I believe that the pirate party is fully adapted to the new realities. And it comes not only through the Internet, but from the technological changes and the closer relationship of people and the distribution of information worldwide. "

According to Dimitris, pirate parties offer something that traditional political formations are not able to, namely to "look forward. From the outset, they had pro-European orientation and position in favour of federalism. The attitudes of their creators are more adapted to the new reality, while the old parties are still embracing the past of 50 years ago and trying to keep it. They behave as if society continues to be in that past time. This, of course, is not true. Society has changed. We have politicians who behave like part of a noble caste and they just do not know about the problems of the people; they are unable to enter the minds of their voters."

Pirate parties are fighting for full transparency, access to information and power by all. Therefore, it becomes more difficult for the members of the legislative and the executive power to live separated from the lives of ordinary citizens. "I think this is a huge step towards solving the problems of Greece today."

He said that the party has yet to be known by the general public. "My friends look at it with interest and caution. People have not yet realized what the pirate party is. We are somewhat "marked" by the issues surrounding copyright and people think we do only that. Copyright is important, but I believe that transparency is more important especially for Greece. "

The pirates are preparing for the pan-European protest against the ACTA Agreement tomorrow. The protests in Greece will take place at Syntagma Square in Athens, Aristotle Square in Thessaloniki and Aghiou Georgiou Square in Patras. Dimitris says the problem with ACTA lies mainly in the mysterious way in which it was agreed. "I personally am not against the creation of a more global framework to fight illegal trade in products covered by copyright. Quite the contrary - I support it because the meaning of the limited impact of a country is a little outdated now, that all crimes are already committed on the Internet. But the fact that ACTA provides super power in the hands of Internet providers, who are forced to accept it intimidated by the judicial aspect of the matter and become police officers in the virtual space, without any intervention by a judicial authority, is troubling. In practice, we will be constantly watched under the pretext that someone somewhere at some point could illegally download a song."

Thomas Gaulle - international coordinator of the party of German pirates, attended the presentation of the Greek pirates.