[pp.int.general] Article 194, Treaty of Rome (Right to make petitions)

[Carlos Ayala Vargas]

Most EU pirate parties (e.g., PIRATA) seem not being able to meet 
requirements to concur to the EU Election -e.g., because of the amount 
of required signatures to be collected-; there is still time to fix it, 
however for some of us maybe we won't gonna make it.

If we are able to agree on a common platform and, however, don't nail 
any seats; or if we nail a few seats but we don't agree on a joint 
platform and there are several issues addressed by the non-parliamentary 
pirate parties who are not addressed by parliamentary pirate parties (I 
prefer to be able to agree on a common platform, though anything can 
happen), I believe it wouldn't be recommendable to spend 5 years without 
being able to directly participate in the legislative decisions of the 
parliament. There is actually a non-parliamentary way to encourage the 
changes we aim to:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do?id=49
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2006/ce321/ce32120061229en00010331.pdf
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getLastRules.do?language=EN&reference=RULE-191
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getLastRules.do?language=EN&reference=RULE-192

"/Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or 
having its registered office in a Member State, shall have the right to 
address, individually or in association with other citizens or persons, 
a petition to the European Parliament on a matter which comes within the 
Community's fields of activity and which affects him, her or it directly/"

According to europarl.europa.eu and rules of procedure, the subject of 
the petition**** must be done by the petitioner "/on a matter which 
comes within the European Union's fields of activity and which affects 
him, her or it directly/". There is even an online form:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/petition/secured/submit.do

If the petition is found admissible, the Committee on Petitions "/may, 
particularly in the case of petitions which seek changes in existing 
law, request opinions from other committees pursuant to Rule 46/"

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+RULES-EP+20081022+RULE-046+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN&navigationBar=YES

The Committee also "/may organise hearings of petitioners or general 
hearings or dispatch members to establish the facts of the situation in 
situ/" and /"where necessary, submit motions for resolutions to 
Parliament on petitions which it has considered/".

Of course, we want seats because, otherwise, we depend on those 
traditional parties I so wholeheartedly criticize; the thing is to seek 
for as many ways as the /rechtsstaat/ allows us to pursue our goals. And 
this, nonetheless, is one of them :) Regards,


                                                                                          
Carlos Ayala
                                                                                          
( Aiarakoa )

                                                                   
Partido Pirata National Board's Chairman

P.D.: Of course I rather prefer that we can be able to:

- agree on a common platform
- agree on PPI inner decision-making procedures
- and, of course, nail at least 1-2 parliamentary seats

however, as anything can happen, there is a proverb, "/provident people 
is double worthy/"; let's gonna be ourselves double worthy.