The party agenda includes support for strengthening the individual's right to privacy, both on the Internet and in everyday life, and the transparency of state administration.

The Pirate Party came fifth in the 2009 European Parliament elections with 7.13% of the vote and one MEP (increasing to two after ratification of the Lisbon Treaty).

[12] The Pirate Party believes that people with an access to free communication, culture and knowledge grow, feel better and create a more enjoyable and humane society for everyone to live in.

We see modern information technology opening up possibilities for people to take action for their own lives and participate in affecting the development of society.

We see how a freer flow of information enables thoughts, cultural creation and the economy to grow.The party advocates a severe reduction of economic sole right of copyrighted works, which today exist for 70 years after the creator's death.

The party also has personal privacy as a core value, and is critical towards laws such as ACTA, IPRED, the Telecoms Package, and the change in legislation regulating the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA).

The party views itself as a defender of the individual's civil rights especially with regards to surveillance, government accountability and political and business corruption.

A new declaration of principles was formed in 2011;[4] at the spring member meeting in 2012, several new political standpoints were decided on areas such as school, research and health care.

It says this would "deprive criminal organisations of income from drug sales and free up police resources that instead could be used to fight crimes with human victims.

On Monday 2 January 2006, a large Swedish financial newspaper, Dagens Industri, produced a story on what was happening.

However, the largest Swedish tabloid, Aftonbladet, managed to track down the Party leader Rickard Falkvinge at work.

Falkvinge, however, was unable to explain the Party's positions while at work, bringing this information gathering effort to an abrupt end.

Aftonbladet posted an online poll indicating that its readers gave the Party a 61% approval rating,[18] and IDG produced a longer front page interview with Falkvinge in the afternoon.

A major Swedish radio station broadcast an interview with Falkvinge about the unexpected amount of attention the initiative received.

More attention followed on Thursday, including coverage by the BBC World Service, the first global radio station to produce a story on the Pirate Party initiative.

At the end of the first week, the Pirate Party platform had been covered by over 500 English-language and over 600 Swedish-language media outlets.

Along with criticizing the approach to restricting Pirate Bay's file sharing by the Minister for Justice Thomas Bodström, the right to free information and rule of law became the Party's main standpoints.

Large increases in membership were associated with the controversial legislative change regulating signals intelligence, the IPRED law regarding copyright holder access to ISP subscriber information and the trial against The Pirate Bay.

Live in the video, Falkvinge sent a tweet saying he stepped down as party leader, and he announced that his successor would be Troberg.

[30] Several influential analysts have credited the Pirate Party and its rising popularity for this shift in the political climate; these include a panel of senior editors at International Data Group[31] and political analysts at the largest morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter.

[32] Additionally, the then Swedish Minister of Justice Thomas Bodström, announced on 9 June that he was willing to negotiate a possible revision of the law introduced in 2005 that made unauthorised downloading of copyrighted material illegal, introducing a new tax on broadband Internet access, but he later denied having changed his stance on the issue.

The Swedish members of parliament wrote that "Decriminalising all non-commercial file sharing and forcing the market to adapt is not just the best solution.

In the election to the Abgeordnetenhaus in Berlin in September 2011, the Pirate Party received 9% of the votes and, for the first time in Germany, gained seats in a state parliament.

Richard Stallman has expressed concern that the Pirate Party's goal of reducing copyright term to 5 years could harm the free software movement.