European Debating League created in Split
The European Debating League (EDL) was created by the representatives of ten European countries at a meeting in Split, Croatia. Teams from all over Europe are invited to compete at EDL tournaments that will be held in the British Parliamentary Style (BPS). The first official season will start in the academic year 2011/2012. But already in the current academic year 2010/2011 a test season will be run.
The countries present via Sykpe or physically were Austria (Rosi Halmi), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Vedran Arapovic), Croatia (Julia Mikic), Germany (Marcus Ewald), Greece (Manos Moschopoulos) Latvia (Robert Bernans), Macedonia (Georgi Velkoski), Serbia (Milan Vignevic), Slovenia (Anna England Kerr) and Ukraine (Kira Shymanska). The representatives decided that a European Debating League is important to improve the quality of European debating and to make European tournaments even more attractive. In order to achieve both, teams from any European country are encouraged to take part in this pan-European league.
For the first testing season, some debating clubs already offered to host league tournaments. The International Debate Academy Slovenia (IDAS) starts with IDAS Open from 26th to 28th November 2010. The second tournament will be the SSE Riga IV in Latvia from 11th to 12th December 2010. After that, the Belgrade Open will be held in Serbia from the 25th to 27th February 2011. The last of the preliminary tournaments will be held in Greece with the Athens Open from the 15th to 17th April 2011. Any tournament in addition to the afore metioned willing to participate in the first testing season is invited to join the tournament calendar.
The basic rules of the League established so far are that any tournament participating in the EDL has to provide a minimum capacity of 24 teams. The point system has not yet been fully determined, but the representatives have agreed on some basic provisions. One is that any team coming to an EDL tournament will be rewarded points. At the end of the season there will be a Masters tournament where the winners of the league tournament and the top teams from the League tab will be invited to decide on the winner of the European Debating League.
Marcus Ewald / glx
