“This house would bring back death penalty.“ Thus read the motion of round one. Easy starting for the first round of a major competition. Everybody would have discussed that topic before, be it as a debater or in an essay back at secondary school. On the other side, that made it quite difficult for the lower half of the tables to find good extension – opening fractions wouldn’t leave any arguments. In our room it ended up being a bit too much about psychopaths we’d say. But valid arguments on both sides helped through the debate, where protecting society was weighed against protection of the individual.

Julia Roberts and Westlife both were part of our room during round two. They both were examples of fake where the motion read “This house would prohibit the media from using software to cosmetically improve an individual’s appearance.” Westlife are an Irish boy group from the late 1990s whose mediocre voices were digitally improved. Or so the opposition whip said. Roberts was all over the media since after her latest shots for a major cosmetics company were so obviously been manipulated, it showed not a single wrinkle – at the age of 44.

Our favorite term in our room in round two: Dystopia of beauticracy. It’s about how the high standards such manipulated pics set facilitates lying – for individuals as well as for the whole society. Didn’t get the concept? Well, we’re reporters, not judges. Just conveying to you the idea of dytopia of beauticracy.

Speaking of beauty and terms – our favorite neologism, probably of the whole week: Tweetensate. The story behind this goes as follows. Unfortunately, there is no live streaming from EUDC in Ireland. Julia Mikić, Twitterer and debater from Croatia longing for news from Galway Euros, invented the term when Achte Minute live-tweeted from one of the rooms during round two. It’s a fusion of the verbs “tweet” and “compensate [for lack of live streaming]”. Thanks for your kudos, Julia!

An info slide was produced before the motion of round three was announced. It read: “In Germany, the Bavarian state Government holds the copyright to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and has thus far porevented its publication. Heavily censored versions are available at most German libraries. The copyright expires in 2016, whereupon any person may publish Mein Kampf in Germany.” The motion hence read: “This house believes that Germany should ban the publication of Mein Kampf indefinitely.” The opening opposition, who later won the debate, argued that access to Mein Kampf is already quite easy, for instance on the internet. Plus, education on Mein Kampf and free access to it will help erode extremism and Nazi propaganda rather than the mere prohibition. Before the debate started, the chair sighed: “Uuugh… two Israelis and a German on the panel.”

But whatever frustration was caused by the debate or not – everybody could find a way to get rid of it with inflatable surprises at the social tonight. Inflatable castle, sumo costumes – the heavy sweat of many not so rhetorical fights lay in the air, when we entered tonight’s venue. Ufff… Be happy we haven’t found a way to convey smell via our homepage! Achte Minute is now going to join the others for karaoke. Good night, sleep tight!

Oh, and by the way: We’re planning on posting audio snippets from the debates tomorrow. Join us on Twitter, starting at 8 a.m. local time.

The European Universities Debating Championships (EUDC or Euros) have been held annually since 1999. It was started in Rotterdam where 32 teams of two competed for the title. For the records: In Amsterdam, 192 teams competed for the very same title in 2010. Format has ever since been British Parliamentary Style(BPS), language of debate is English. Debaters from all over Europe and Israel take part in Euros and compete with each other in two categories: the open break (for native speakers) and “English as a Second Language” (ESL). Current champions are Eoghan Casey and Patrick Rooney (Kings Inn), ESL champions are Maja Cimerman and Filip Dobranic from Ljubljana. This year’s Euros will be held in Galway, Ireland, from 7 to 13 August. Chief adjudicator is Ruth Faller (Ireland), her deputies are Shengwu Li (Singapore), Simone van Elk (The Netherlands), Steven Nolan (Ireland) and Yoni Cohen Idov (Israel). Isabelle Loewe from Debattierclub Bonn and Tony Murphy (Ireland) will be equity officers. Galway’s tabmaster is Harry McEvansoneya, an Irish as well. During the Euros, the EUDC Council will sit and for instance decide about the host of next year’s championship. Currently, Belgrade (Serbia) is bidding for staging the European Universities Debating Championships 2012.

Note from the editor: During Galway, we’ll be publishing mostly in English only. Thanks for understanding.