“I hope we also significantly increase the representation of women in Parliament”, said the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, in his speech on the draft law of the Ministry of Education, Religion and Sports entitled “Strengthening the Public University – Framework for the operation of non-profit branches of foreign universities”.
However, the prime minister began his speech by addressing the governor. of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoubas, saying: “I assumed, Mr. C.G., that you asked for the floor in an emergency to apologize for your unacceptable sexist position, which proves that the KKE remains the most anachronistic force in the room. And don’t be too quick to accuse us of anti-communism,” he said.
“Your voices will not mask the poverty of your arguments,” he even said, adding:
“Perhaps you imagine Greece as a communist country, because these things happened elsewhere,” the prime minister continued, addressing Dimitris Koutsoubas. “But luckily these issues have been resolved by history. You will no longer stand in the bullpen as a modernizing force that is beyond criticism and you don’t have the courage to come out and say ‘sorry, I was wrong’.
Watch the speech of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in the Plenary Session of the Parliament, in the debate on the draft law of the Ministry of Education, Religions and Sports entitled: “Strengthening the Public University – Framework for the operation of non-profit branches of foreign universities”.
Referring to the essence of the bill, the Prime Minister said that it “is of special importance because we are called to approve a radical cut in education and a bold reform of development. An initiative that primarily strengthens the public university but also shapes the framework, so that non-state non-profit universities can finally operate in our country”.
And he continued: “It is a choice with two directions but also with parallel goals: it offers children more options to study in their country and it aspires to include Greece on the international educational map, the new generation is armed with new possibilities for individual advancement. It is a need that comes from the deep past, I went back to the minutes of the Parliament and found a position I had made in 2007 in the revision committee of the Constitution. I said then “let’s escape from the unprecedented anachronism of being the only country in Europe that still holds this monopoly on education”.
To strengthen the public university
“The public university”, stressed the prime minister, “will be significantly strengthened beyond the money paid annually, it will be financed with over 1 billion. The term cooperating professor is being expanded with the aim of attracting Greek professors with doctorates working abroad. These mean more, better-skilled, better-paid teachers. The university will be able to attract foreign students who will pay tuition fees and learn the Greek language. The bill accelerates digital transformation of our universities and for the first time launches the inventory of university assets to harness untapped resources for the benefit of the academic community. The Democritus University is elevated to a Metropolitan University, placing under its academic umbrella the 30 schools in Thrace and Eastern Macedonia, which I think will please Mr. Androulakis who studied there. The country is acquiring a dynamic pillar with cutting edge lifelong learning, distance education and student training”.
“We are not reinventing the wheel”
“The goal is to prevent Greek students from leaving abroad, while they can do so within Greece. Let’s stop hiding behind our finger,” the prime minister noted.
And he emphasized: “Today more than 40,000 Greeks are studying abroad and we want to fill this gap by allowing students to study at reliable international universities without leaving their homes. We are not coming to reinvent the wheel, but we are establishing what is true even in North Korea.”
“Anyone who wants to close their eyes to the truth will remain imprisoned on their own dogmatic planet,” he pointed out.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis also said that “the specifications and guarantees included are perhaps the strictest in Europe. Each branch should have at least 30 professors, 90% of whom hold a doctorate degree, special provision for staff qualifications, while everything will be approved by the highest education authority and the Ministry of Education will have the final responsibility. Did you measure, when you criticized, the filters and safeguards that are put in place? It is right to separate serious institutions from some opportunistic ones. Are we opening university doors to unqualified students? No, because the minimum admission basis will apply here as well, just like in the public ones. They voted once morest the minimum import base themselves…what exactly are you asking for? To be abolished in public and valid in private? We said we tolerate hypocrisy, but so much? And the absurdity of the reaction to the non-state universities is completed by the rapid privatization. Tuition Fees Many public universities are tuition-based, aren’t they? We foresee 10% in the non-state to be with a scholarship. Many students are in college already, I don’t understand those who advocate freedom of choice and forget that when we talk regarding the right of young people to determine their future. Dust also arose around the constitutionality of the bill. We are talking regarding an explicit provision that they will operate as branches of recognized foreign institutions. The majority of leading constitutionalists, led by Antonis Manitakis, write that the letter of the article of the Constitution remains intact and the ban on the establishment of non-state universities is still in full force. The arguments regarding unconstitutionality are hollow – he writes. Life has proven that the constitutional imperative evolves and must be adapted to Union law. Anyone who wants to turn a blind eye to the truth will remain imprisoned on his own dogmatic planet.”
Criticism of SYRIZA
“I rarely refer to the opposition,” said the prime minister, “but I can’t resist the temptation, because indeed the political messages you sent out, because I didn’t see Mr. Kasselakis in a state of mourning, I saw him happily crying,” he said.
“You have a president who studied at a great non-state American university on scholarship. Mr. Kasselakis, who studied at such a university, if he came here to open a branch in Greece, he would say no. How much hypocrisy? Mr. Tsipras, who studied at Metsovio, says it well, but Mr. Kasselakis? I imagine he had other thoughts, but by diving into the microcosm of SYRIZA he adapted, what should he do?”
PASOK did not escape the prime minister’s arrows.
“Your polyphony is turning into babbling. Your former president, Mr. Venizelos, constitutionally supported the need to support the reform. Mr. Androulakis, it was your pre-election commitment, some disagree and I don’t see them here today, as you imposed party discipline. The minister and the government made a sincere effort to include all your concerns in the bill. You forgot 85% of the bill refers to the upgrading of the public university, what will you do with the article regarding Democritus University and what will you do with your jagged line, this result is absolute political surrealism”, he said and announced that: ” ND will file a request for a roll call vote for the articles concerning the public university. To make the checkout at the end. The party gives you the impression that it came out of a time machine but, instead of going forward, you are going backwards.”
The prime minister also said that: “George Papandreou is the Benjamin Button of politics because in 2007 he backed down on the constitution revision committee, and now he disagrees with the establishment of non-state universities and the revision of the Constitution. After all, you don’t trust the public university, because you know that in addition to academic competition, it will also display a model, laboratories and libraries instead of hooded haunts, this comparison makes all of you who made careers in the auditoriums tremble, having learned to consider some schools to be your little ones. ».
Continuing, the prime minister said: “It is not possible to have such a comprehensive policy with the public university facing so many controversies. It occurred to me to vote for the bill, said Mr. Kasselakis, but I won’t… if the Sorbonne comes here, what will we say? No; These opinions are not serious. We don’t care who will be second and who will be third, if Mr. Androulakis will be the green SYRIZA, what is a shame is that another opportunity for cross-party consensus is lost,” he noted.
“This is an initiative that goes beyond its limits to become a political choice and a national imperative. It is a step that opens new horizons for tomorrow. It is coming to gain lost ground and time, Greece cannot wait any longer captive to parties and anachronistic concepts. This intersection turns a meteoric weakness of the post-colonialism into an opportunity. Giving our own young generation equal academic opportunities that exist everywhere. Those who disagree are devotees of inactivity. I am proud that ND, and I personally, dare to finally turn the page. For those who say that this change is not timely, necessary to see how many decades we have been discussing this issue?”
And he concluded: “To seek the establishment of non-state higher institutions based on community law, to provide a solution to the huge Greek problem of families and their children leaving abroad. These are the programmatic statements of 1990, of the government of Constantinos Mitsotakis, 34 years ago. Our vote must be positive as a vote of confidence in the public university but also resounding for greater access to knowledge for all Greek children”.
Watch the Plenary debate live…
The voting will take place in the evening and it is expected that based on the positions of the parties, the bill will be approved by the majority of the deputies.
As noted in the bill for non-state universities, “the operation of the branches – N.P.P.E. contributes on the one hand to the cross-border provision of higher education services by setting quality criteria and conditions, and on the other hand to the expansion of educational opportunities provided in our country in a manner compatible with the social mission of higher education. In addition, the aim is to attract foreign students to the country, to meet the ever-increasing domestic demand for university studies, to increase economic growth indicators, to stop the tendency of the country’s young people to emigrate to study in universities abroad, as well as the repatriation of Greek academics and scientists to work in a corresponding university environment in their country.
During the elaboration of the bill in the competent parliamentary committee, and in the opinion of the opposition that the controversial part of the bill violates article 16 of the Constitution, the competent minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis invoked a number of distinguished constitutional experts who consider Constitutions to be living organisms that “need fresh readings and not litanies”. As for the intention of opposition speakers to file an objection of unconstitutionality during the plenary debate, Mr. Pierrakakis observed that the opposition was not justified in any of the 45 objections of unconstitutionality it filed since 2019. The opinions of all of us will be judged by the judiciary , in the context of the separation of powers, said the Minister of Education.
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