The European University Debate Championship will come to Zagreb next year. About 700 students from across Europe will spend seven days in the Croatian capital debating, discussing, and exchanging ideas. This is a significant achievement for the Zagreb Debate Union, which narrowly succeeded in winning the bid against the British city of Durham. They achieved this together with the Open Communication association and the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb.
Of course, this victory is just the beginning, as there is still a full year until August next year, and there is much work to be done in organizing such a large gathering.
– The championship will take place from August 18 to 23, and to make it as successful as possible, it is important for us to attract high-quality sponsors. Participants pay a registration fee, but it barely covers accommodation and food costs, and at such an event, the goal is to provide participating students with other experiences – explains Nika Jelaska, president of the Zagreb Debate Union.
Students will thus have organized various social events in addition to the debate competition, which will serve for networking and socializing. The organizers will use these events to promote beautiful Zagreb venues such as the Museum of Modern Art or the Croatian National Theatre.
– The competition for hosting this event is motivated by the desire to bring debating back to the Balkans. Debate is an important activity – it plays a role in how we engage, communicate, and persuade. While in some societies debate is recognized and valued as an activity worth investing in, in others it still lacks institutional, financial, and social support – explains Jelaska.
Prestigious universities cover travel expenses for the best debate teams and take the results they achieve very seriously. On the other hand, excellent debate teams from this part of Europe often lack the funds to participate in the European University Debate Championship when it is held in more distant countries (this year’s championship was held, for example, in Manchester). Students from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, or other countries in difficult economic situations rarely have sponsors and struggle to find money for travel and expenses in such destinations. Therefore, the Zagreb championship should be one of the more accessible competitions for students from this part of Europe.
– One of the best things that has happened to European debate in recent years is the development of debate clubs in the Balkans and the wider region, such as Hungary or Austria – says Rebecca Meredith, the chief judge of the competition.
The European University Debate Championship has been held since 1999, when it was first held in Rotterdam, Netherlands, but on a much smaller scale than it is today. Although debate appears unified in the broader public, there are actually different formats of competition, and the format used for the European University Debate Championship has always been the British parliamentary debate format, which involves two sides representing opposing positions. These sides argue for or against a topic (for example, for the introduction of higher taxes on the wealthy and against it), and the side they argue for has nothing to do with their age preferences and depends on the case, luck, and fair distribution of all existing team roles within the team.
