NRW debattiert Europa is an inter-university debating format empowering Bachelor and Master students across academic disciplines from North Rhine-Westphalian universities to critically discuss the EU, its core values and respective future. While debating competitions are widespread at Anglo-American universities, such events have hardly been established in Germany to date.

With more than 300 young Europeans from six participating universities and a considerable high number of so-called first-generation students NRW debattiert Europa is novel and foremost more than just an academic exercise. It allows students valuable insights into real-life parliamentarianism by teaching the importance of debates for the successful functioning of the EU, reflecting on misinformation and EU myths and by providing an opportunity to practice the art of debating in front of practitioners, media representatives and an interested public in a region with more than 18 Million citizens.