“The eighteen months until the 2025-2026 academic year are sufficient to prepare the ground for the perfectly orderly operation of non-state universities,” says the Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, in his first interview after the passage of the bill in Parliament.

Speaking to the newspaper “Parapolitika”, he announces that one of the next initiatives of the government in the field of Education will be the dialogue on the National Baccalaureate, which will change the way of admission to universities.

Regarding the issue of unconstitutionality, Mr. Pierrakkakis replied: “We listen with absolute respect to every scientific position on the matter, whether it supports our own position or not. Between the two trends that took shape, we chose to trust leading professors of Constitutional and Administrative Law – Mr. Venizelos, Mr. Skouris, Mr. Alivizatos, Mr. Manitakis, Mr. Spyropoulos-, whose opinions range from ” allowed” to the point that we are “required” to interpret Article 16 of the Constitution in this way”.

He also reiterated that “the regulatory conditions, the conditions that this bill puts in place, we have said it, I have said it from the first day and I will not stop emphasizing it, are the strictest in Europe”.
“And when we say that, we are breaching open doors. Because the terms of recognition of rights in Europe are the ones that currently apply to colleges here. Foreign recognition is enough. We, therefore, come here to put the dominant prism, the controlling one, of ETHAAE, the independent Authority. Beyond that, as I mentioned many times in the Parliament, this current reading of the Constitution in the light of Union Law will certainly be judged by the third power, the judiciary,” he added.