The winning team of this year’s Munich Open: Calyxx Peucker & Philipp Müller – © Jan-Gunther Gosselke

From October 28th till October 30th, the first Munich Open took place after substantial preparations by conveners Katharina Heinrich and Christian Rausch. CAed by Monica Forman, Ben Shaw and Melda Eren, it extended the former trio of important international tournaments in the German circuit (Berlin IV, Tilbury IV, Vienna IV) by a fourth.

Following five preliminary rounds, ‘Berlin B’ (Stefan Torges & Julian Stastny) , ‘Clash and Burn’ (Friedrichshafen/Munich, Calyxx Peucker & Philipp Müller), ‘Heidelberg Rennehardt’ (Benedikt Rennekamp & Martin Reinhardt), ‘My minority is more important’ (Vienna/Tübingen, Madlen Stottmeyer & Marius Hobbhahn), ‘Boun A+’ (Istanbul, Didar Tutan & Yunus Emre Erdölen), ‘Lubljana A’ (Oxford/Lubljana, Teck Wei Tan & Elizabeta Korenčan), ‘Domžale’ (Slovenia, Ana Vilhelmina Verdnik & Arthur-Louis Heath) und ‘Aalto A’ (Helsinki, Joona Suhonen & Markus Myllymaki) broke to the semi finals out of the original 32 teams. Vienna/Tübingen, Friedrichshafen/Munich, Domžale and Lubljana then advanced to the final.

The adjudicator break consisted of Wladislaw Jachtchenko, Markus Dankerl, Yimin Ge, Jan-Gunther Gosselke, Christian Rausch, Sabine Wilke, Milla Huuskonen, Julian von Lautz, Tobias Münch, Lennart Lokstein, Jure Hederih and Stav Singer as well as the Chief Adjudicators Ben Shaw, Monica Forman and Melda Eren.

In the final, the remaining four teams were to debate the question whether THW ban cash. Running as Opening Government, Vienna/Tübingen argued that this is necessary to adequately fight money laundering and organized crime as well as to increase the efficiency of monetary policies. Also, they prebutted upcoming arguments related to privacy topics by mentioning that already today, the government knows most aspects of the population’s bank account movements and thus the abandonment of cash does not lead to less privacy. Friedrichshafen/Munich however countered this in Opening Opposition by, in a detailed manner, describing the privacy issues they saw both, in relation to banks as well as the state. Following this, Calyxx and Philipp also spoke about the tangibility of physical money and how, according to them, it affects one’s spending behavior. Rebutting OG, they further argued that the measure would not be very effective either due to a proclaimed substituition of money through highly liquid commodities (e.g. diamonds) by criminal groups. In extensions speeches, Lubljana as Closing Government amended OG’s proposition with the concept of a digital wallet, allowing individuals to store their digital money without being dependent on banks. Based on this, they started to rebuttal privacy-related points of OO and extended on the argument that digital money is less likely to be stolen. This however was quickly countered by Domžale in Closing Opposition, who brought up the point that already today, people afraid of having their money stolen could keep it digitally using their normal bank account, thus this not being a unique feature of prop’s case. Further, the Domžale team challenged CG’s argument that this would prevent privacy issues, claiming that even in such a digital wallet system, some sort of central entity would be needed. This was accepted, but defended by the government whip before the debate was closed by CO.

Following the debate, the panel gave first place to Opening Opposition from Friedrichshafen/Munich Clash and Burn. Besides this, deputy leader of opposition Philipp Müller was also declared best speaker of the tournament, allowing him to eventually carry home two cups, or, more specific, traditional Munich beer mugs as prices for the win.

Motion Overview:

PR1: THW limit the time in office for heads of state to two terms

PR2: THB that the EU should actively support ‘Women on Waves’

Infoslide: ‘Women on Waves’ is a Dutch NGO that assists women in having an abortion in countries where it’s currently illegal. Their activities include: Operating a ship that takes women out into international waters to perform abortions by doctors onboard; Giving instructions for the obtaining and usage of pills for early abortion; Rasing awarenesss. Currently, they operate in various countries around the world.

PR3: THW allow third parties who have been harmed by a workers strike to sue the union(s) for damages.

PR4: TH opposes the Black Lives Matter’s endorsement of BDS.

Infoslide: BDS is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality operating outside of Israel, active especially in Europe and the US. As their acronym, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) suggests, the means they use to increase international pressure on Israel include: Widespread encouragement both not to consume Israeli goods and not to invest in Israel; convincing influential figures not to visit or cooperate with Israel; promoting the Palestinian narrative.

BDS has a very strong campus presence and is highly involved in student politics.

PR5: In countries with public healthcare, THW not cover life prolonging treatments for the elderly.

SF: THB that European countries should compel migrants and refugees to attend lessons about the sexual norms prevailant in the country.

F: THW ban cash in the developed world.

jgg./jm.