Below you can read about Viktor’s experience at the World Economics BPD 2025 which took place in Online based in India on February 23, 2025. You can find the full tab here.

Four members of the National Team of Austria participated in the 2025 WEBPD (World Economics British Parliamentary Debate), a renowned annual tournament with a focus on economic motions. This year the tournament was held online. The tournament started very early, at 4am CET to be precise, though the judges were joining from India, which is 4:30 hours ahead. Three debates were planned for today, after which the breaking teams would be announced.

The teams from Austria were:
Team Red: Elena Brehm, Viktor Vojnoski
Team White: Elisa Cerda, Mihail Zahariev

The first debate focused on taxes, specifically whether consumer or income taxes are more beneficial.

The second debate was centered around sanctions, posing the question whether they create more harm than good.

The third and final pre-breaking debate was all about friend-shoring, an economic strategy that calls for countries to prioritize trade relations with countries they already have a good diplomatic relationship with. The quite intense debate saw teams debating over the efficiency of friend-shoring, with one side being firmly in support and the other against it.

Both teams presenting for Austria came extremely near to breaking in the end. Every speaker also provided excellent argumentation and further advanced their skills, while getting to meet teams from Zimbabwe, to India, to Hong Kong. And on top of all that every single speaker was in the top half, with three making it in the top ten best speakers of the tournament.

Viktor ranked as 6th best speaker, Elena and Elisa as 9th best speakers.

All in all, this was an amazing experience from which team Austria has without doubt learned a lot.