Debating in the Netherlands started with the Dutch Anglo-Saxon Debate Institute, held for the first time in 1989. DAPDI consists of a week-long debate training with three days of workshops taught by debaters from Oxford, and in recent years, Cambridge as well, combined with a two-day tournament that has helped Dutch debating reach a high level in a short period of time. Dutch debating societies have grown in number and in strength since the foundation of the first debating society in Rotterdam. Dutch teams have been successful in international tournaments: winning the English as a Second Language category of the European Championships four times since 2001 and twice in the World Championships, while the Utrecht Debating Society is still the only non-native team ever to win the European Championships main competition. Debating is now starting to go beyond universities and a large number of secondary schools have their own debate teams and participate in a number of competitions each year. The student debating societies of the Netherlands now cooperate in the Dutch Debate Association to further promote debating.

Dutch Debating Societies

ASDV Bonaparte was founded in 1998 in Amsterdam. It is by far the largest Dutch Debating society with over 200 members. It organises the Bonaparte Debate Tournament (in Dutch) since 2001, the Dutch National Eloquence Championships since 2004 and the international  tournament Amsterdam Open since 2007. Bonaparte holds weekly debate meetings on Tuesdays, as well as regular training workshops on Thursdays. They hold public debates with prominent speakers a few times a year (former prime minister Dries van Agt, prominent feminist Heleen Mees and mayor Job Cohen to name a few) in Debat aan het Vondelpark. Although most debates at Bonaparte are in Dutch, its members have been successful in the international arena as well: reaching the Euros ESL final in 2004 and 2006 and providing four of the ten best ESL speakers in Tallinn,2008, making the quarterfinal of the main break in Berlin Euros and reaching the ESL final in Dublin Worlds before winning the title in Thailand Worlds in 2008.
The Debatclub Cicero is the second oldest debating society in the Netherlands. It started out as the Debat Club Tilburg in 1991,focused on eloquence debating. Cicero organises a Dutch tournament since 2004 and hosted a successful Dutch national championship in 2007. Its main international achievements are reaching the semifinals of the ESL competition in Oxford in 2006 and in Vancouver Worlds in 2007. The Cicero debate night is held in Dutch, on Wednesday evenings.
The Erasmus Debating Society is the oldest debating society in the Netherlands; it was founded in 1989 in Rotterdam. Its creation sprang from the great enthusiasm for debating that its founders took from DAPDI, which Erasmus still organises every year. Being the first Dutch debating society, they actively aided other debating societies to come into being and in 1999 took it upon themselves to restart the European Universities Debating Championships after the initiative had found a quiet end in the early 1990s. For a long time, the Erasmus Debating Society was also the most successful Dutch debating society, with ESL champions at Euros 2001 in Ljubljana, 2003 in Zagreb and 2005 in Cork and ESL World Champions in 2006 in Dublin. Erasmus teams reached the final of the main break in Euros in 2001 and the semi-final in 2006 in Berlin. The Rotterdam debate evenings take place on Mondays and are held in English. Besides DAPDI, the Erasmus Debating Society organises a BP tournament almost every year, this was held in English as the Rotterdam Open from 2005 until 2007 and is now held in Dutch.
GDS Kalliope from Groningen is the youngest addition to the Dutch debating world, founded in 2007 and already successful at Euros 2009 by reaching the ESL semi final in Newcastle. The 2008/2009 academic year proved successful for Kalliope, as they also reached the final at the Bonaparte Debate Tournament, the ESL final at the Cardiff IV and won the national novice tournament. Kalliope succesfully organised its first tournament, the Groningen Minis, in May 2009. The Groningen debate evenings are held on Mondays and are in Dutch.
The Leiden Debating Union, home of our CA Leela Koenig, was founded in 2004 as the Leiden Society for Debating and was immediately successful, reaching the ESL final of Durham Euros in 2004. This proved an auspicious start for a highly successful debating society: Leiden reached the ESL final of Euros again in Koç 2007 and Tallinn 2008 before winning the title in Newcastle in 2009. Leiden teams also reached the open quarterfinals in Tallinn Euros and the ESL final in Cork Worlds 2009 and Koç Worlds 2010. Leiden has so far organised two international Leiden Opens, the 2007 edition of which hosted 60 teams from all over Europe. The Leiden Debating Union hosted the first ever Dutch National Championships in BP style in April 2010. Their weekly debate meetings are in English and take place on Tuesdays.
NSDV Trivium was founded in Nijmegen in 2005 and holds its debate meetings on Tuesdays. Trivium hosted its first tournament in 2007 when it organised the first ever Dutch allround tournament, which included the Dutch Parliamentary, British Parliamentary and Eloquence formats. To top that off, Trivium organised another tournament that same year, which has become a mainstay in Dutch debating: the Trivium summer edition, at which all sorts of debate formats are practiced with which you will surely not win tournaments, like the Ad Hominem competition. The Trivium tournament reverted to Dutch Parliamentary style in 2008 and Trivium hosted a successful Dutch National Championship in 2009. Triviums biggest international success was winning the Oxford ESL final in 2007.
The UCU Debating Union is the debating society of University College Utrecht, an independent liberal arts institute of the Utrecht University. Debating was first spotted at UCU in 2000, but the debating society has had its ups and downs, with the most notable top result reaching the ESL final at Zagreb Euros in 2003 before disappearing into anonimity for a couple of years. The current Union was founded in 2008 and has strong backing from enthousiastic debaters. They have reached the final at the Sciences Po ESL IV 2009 and won the Cambridge ESL final 2009. UCU hosted the first ever IronMan Invitational in February 2010. UCU holds weekly meetings in English on Thursdays, debating mostly in BP style.
The Utrecht Debating Society was founded in 1995. They are responsible for one of the biggest successes ever achieved by a Dutch team by winning the open competition of Durham Euros in 2004, the first and only English as a Second Language institution to do so in Euros. Utrecht also reached the ESL final in Zagreb Euros in 2003 and was the first Dutch debating society to reach the ESL final in Worlds, in Glasgow 2001. The UDS evenings are held on Wednesdays and are in Dutch. The Utrecht Debating Society has organised its own tournament since 1998, hosting the Dutch national championships a number of times, the last one being in 2008.