Introduction

The Pirate Party believes in the EU’s opportunities to create an exchange of ideas, experience and knowledge, both between Europeans and with the rest of the world. Through the sharing of information, knowledge and culture, people come closer to each other and society develops. Strengthening Europeans’ opportunities to share with each other, and to build social ties with each other, should be the main purpose of the EU project.

1. Transparency and transparency

The Pirate Party wants decision-making to be characterized by accessibility, openness and transparency. In addition, it must be possible to review and understand decisions from the outside. This creates particular challenges for the EU, which needs to strengthen its work in the area. Decisions must be traceable, from the EU parliamentarians who made them to the national bodies that implement them.

Today, almost all votes in the EU Parliament take place by a show of hands, which makes it impossible to check afterwards how our elected representatives have voted. It is unacceptable.

Therefore, we want to:

§1 Transparent digital records of recipients of EU aid are established;

§2 Journalists who reveal misuse of EU funds must be protected in the same way as whistleblowers;

§3 Votings in the European Parliament’s committees and plenary sessions shall be possible to review in retrospect;

§4 The EU parliamentarians must report how they use their office support.

2. Strengthened EU Parliament

The Pirate Party wants to reform the EU so that decisions are made close to those affected, in a transparent and traceable manner and by elected politicians. Therefore, we want to strengthen the parliament’s power vis-à-vis the Council of Ministers and the Commission. Today, the EU Parliament lacks the ability to propose legislation; instead, one can only modify, approve or reject legislative proposals coming from the European Commission. In certain special legislative matters, the EU Parliament cannot reject legislation, but that right belongs only to the Council of Ministers.

Therefore, we want to:

§5 The EU Parliament is given the right to propose legislation;

§6 The EU Parliament is given the same opportunity to reject all legislative proposals.

3. Reform of the national representation

The purpose of the Council of Ministers is to guarantee representation of the national interests during the work on EU regulations. This is particularly important for less populous countries such as Sweden, whose MEPs make up a very small part of the parliament’s numbers. Therefore, it is particularly serious that the Council of Ministers is the EU institution that functions by far the worst. The Council of Ministers has serious problems with transparency, even on such basic points as being able to review how one’s representatives have voted, and lobbying that approaches corruption. Those who represent me in the Council of Ministers have a weak connection to democracy, as they are sent by the government, which is only indirectly elected by the people.

The Pirate Party wants to strongly reform the Council of Ministers. Instead of the governments of the member states having to negotiate in secret about their interests, far from popular transparency and power, we want to introduce a European senate. The senators must be directly elected by the people and not appointed by either national parliaments or governments. Each country must have the right to an equal number of senators, which guarantees that the Senate is a counterweight to the composition of the EU Parliament. This does not have to change the balance of power between the countries in the Council of Ministers, but the majority requirements can be transferred directly to the Senate.

The Pirate Party also wants to reform how Swedish EU policy is conducted. Today, the people’s interests are not represented in Swedish EU politics, due to a couple of institutional shortcomings. In Sweden, it is the Riksdag that must make laws, not the government. It is a fundamental part of Swedish power-sharing policy and the basis of our parliamentary democracy. Today, the establishment of EU laws is at least as relevant as the establishment of national laws, but in working with EU laws the government has priority over the Riksdag. In theory, the government’s EU policy is to be prepared in the EU Committee, but this has neither the time, expertise nor opportunity to do much more than snap the government’s fingers in the event of particularly serious slippages.

In Sweden, solid investigative work and associated consultation rounds have historically been good guarantors of well-thought-out and anchored legislation. When it comes to Sweden’s EU policy in the Council of Ministers, however, this good practice is omitted. As a rule, investigations and consultation rounds are only used after the important political decisions have been made, and almost only concern pure implementation issues of already established laws.

Therefore, we want to:

§8 The Council of Ministers is abolished and replaced by a European Senate;

§9 Each member state is entitled to two senators;

§10 The senators are directly elected by personal mandate;

§11 The Constitution is amended so that EU legislation is a matter of government, and thus subject to the requirement for legislation by consultation;

§12 Government practice changes so that the way it tries to influence EU laws is transparently reported;

§13 The EU Committee is abolished and legislative matters at the EU level are instead handled by the Riksdag committee that handles the relevant politic area.

4. Monetary union

A currency union requires a coordinated economic policy, and today there are no democratic, transparent mechanisms or conditions for creating one in the EU. Therefore, Sweden must keep the krona as currency and not introduce the euro. Sweden should also maintain the krona’s floating exchange rate and not join the ERM. Sweden shall not guarantee the government debts of other states.

Therefore, we want to:

§14 Sweden still does not adopt the euro as currency.