The possibility of seeing pirates in parliament is not far off if a new party gets its way

The Pirate Party has been approved as a party name for the next parliamentary election in Denmark.

The party follows on from its Swedish counterpart, which is now the third largest in Sweden in terms of membership.

The party was set up to fight for personal privacy laws and the decriminalisation of copyright violations such as online file-sharing.

In Denmark, efforts to register the Pirate Party began just four months ago and now the next step is for it to collect the 20,000 signatures needed to allow members to run for it in the next election.

Their Swedish counterpart plans to run in its national elections in 2010 and has already achieved success by nabbing one of Sweden’s 18 European parliamentary seats.

Danish Pirate Party vice-chair Erik Ernst said excitement was high after the news of the party’s approval.

‘We also hope to be in the European parliament some day, but the first thing is to get a movement started,’ Ernst said.