Many participants chose to arrive a day earlier to be sure to enjoy something of the scenery before getting into the tournament itself. The Sunday was not part of the official Euros program, but the national football team was kind enough to provide sufficient entertainment during the World Cup Final, as many a participant walked around the city clad in orange and watched the match on one of the many squares filled with people from everywhere in the Netherlands.

• Arrivals day
• Registration
• Public debate

Participants arrived at Schiphol, Amsterdam CS and the port of IJmuiden, but all were asked to make their way to the Best Western Blue Tower and Blue Square Hotels by themselves or come to Schiphol to get a bus ride. The administrative bits like (most) ESL interviews, registration and last-minute changes to teams or hotel rooms were done at this stage. The two hotels faced each other in a football match, to prove which was the better place to stay at.

The public event in De Rode Hoed, an old church-in-hiding and currently an important debate centre for Amsterdam’s intelligentsia, kicked off the official part of the program. Rod Rastan took over from Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor at the ICC, with only three hours notice and discussed the dilemma between peace and justice and why we should not offer amnesty in exchange for peace. The two hotels faced off in another battle, this time deciding the winner of the drinking game. We do not know who won this, but are fairly certain the Blue Square won the price for being up early the next day.

• Official Opening
• Round 1-4
• Relax night in Club 8

The first day with preliminary rounds started early at the Free University and ended late. We opened with a short introduction from loco-Mayor Lodewijk Asscher, who welcomed our participants to the city and then briefed everyone on the proceedings of the week. This was followed by four rounds of debating, each lasting approximately two hours. The motions dealt with membership criteria for the European Union, the relationship between teacher and pupils, whether we should use development aid as a tool to stimulate countries to accept large influxes of immigrants and grounds for censorship of art. The precise wording of the motions can be found here. After dinner, many participants went on to discuss events in Club 8, a relaxed club in between the university and the hotels in West.

• Round 5 to 8
• Break night in Panama

Wednesday started at the same early hour with breakfast at the VU, but was slightly more relaxed thanks to the absence of briefings. The motions set for the day dealt with the Bradley Manning case,  the idea that only women should have the right to bear arms, rewarding the Taliban with power-sharing deals if they disarmed and whether citizens in developing nations should receive cash dividens for income from their natural resources.

After dinner and the completion of yet another solid 10 hours of debating, judging and preparing for rounds, everyone went on to nightclub Panama, where the 16 teams that would continue in the quarterfinals for the open competition and the ESL competition were announced. The results can be found here on our website.

• Open and ESL quarter and semi-finals
• Amsterdam by night tours

Thursday started an hour later than the preliminary days, with breakfast provided at the Binnengasthuisterrein Mensa Atrium. The quarterfinals were held in the Oudemanhuispoort, owned by the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA). The Open quarters were held first, discussing whether we should ban gay pride manifestations when there is a risk of violent backlash against participants. The ESL quarterfinal discussed whether guerrilla fighters, insurgents and terrorists should receive international legal protection similar to soldiers in war.

The semi finals were held in the Oude Lutherse Kerk (the UvA Aula) and the Singelkerk, another former church-in-hiding, both located near Spui.It was a bit of an effort to get almost 600 people to move between two spots that were only 7 minutes walking away from each other, but just happened to cross several canals and a busy street with trams, bikes and cars. We are grateful none of our participants got into a direct meeting with any of these vehicles. The open semifinals discussed whether the state should set the wages for people working in jobs deemed of moral value or societal importance. The ESL semifinalists had to deal with the notion that primates should have rights equivalent to children’s rights.

The finalists were announced from the balcony of the Mensa Atrium. we then offered tours of diverse parts of Amsterdam’s nightlife in the evening, with a tour of the coffeeshops and the red light district, a pub crawl, a whiskey tasting, a club tour sampling Amsterdam’s dance scene and a tour of famous gay clubs. De Jaren was our central pub for the day, a classic café and brasserie, it is one of the few cafés that is big enough to hold so many people. Representatives from each country, and a number of other debate dignitaries were in the meantime discussing the future of the European Championships in Council. The result of that discussion, which lasted until Friday morning (with a break for sleep in between) will be posted here.

• Open and ESL finals
• Canal cruise dinner
• Championship party

The finals were held in the afternoon in the wonderful and intimate Westerkerk in the city centre of Amsterdam. The church has fantastic acoustics and has a real town hall feel to make it a great location for a debate. It also added greatly to the wonderful singing of the English and Irish in their sing-off. The ESL finalists debated the motion that even in response to the most serious crimes a just penal system should have no consideration for society’s desire for retribution. The topic for the Open final was that after a humanitarian intervention has halted human rights abuses the occupation forces should leave, if the population clearly establishes this as their wish.

After a break with drinks and a speech by the Netherlands’ most famous sociologist, Abram de Swaan, who discussed the absence and future of the European polity and its public space in which debate takes place. After the closing ceremony The closing ceremonies saw the distributing of several traditional Dutch wares to the winners and people who aided during the tournament. We then took our participants on a wonderful trip along the canals of Amsterdam, while they ate a traditional Indonesian ‘rice table’. The final party in the Melkweg was a great succes, as we have never seen so many debaters dance before. The last participants left the building at around 5 am, well before the start of our next program, but probably too late to miss the early-birds’ bus back to Schiphol.

• Departure day
• Picnic in the park
• Excursions

This was the final party, but we did offer some more relaxation on Saturday. Following a good Amsterdam Open tradition, we organised a picnic in the Vondelpark, where people could relax, share memories and say goodbye to all their new-found friends. And a number of dedicated individuals went on excursions through Amsterdam, learning more about Amsterdam’s war history, Golden Age, and religious background.