On the table, before the plenary session of the Council of State (AD), the four applications for the cancellation of the Panhellenic Federation of Teaching Research Associations of AEI (POSDEP), teachers of HEIs and Colleges, were raised, against the establishment and operation of private universities in Athens and Thessaloniki.
The Teachers of HEIs and POSDEP in their applications to the CoE for the cancellation of the establishment of private universities argue, among other things, that the Settings of Law 5094/2024 violate Article 16 of the Constitution.
And this is because the article provides for the Providing Higher Education exclusively by legal entities of public law and teachers who have the status of public officials, Prohibition of establishing Higher Schools by individuals and Free Education at all levelsas well as downgrading the guarantees of Article 16 of the Constitution on ensuring the high quality higher education level and the registration of academic freedom.
Colleges argue, among other things, that Law 5094/2024 distorts the already formed market for educational services in the country, creating two -speed providers and downgrading colleges to second -class service providers, because it recognizes other legal entities as official “Annexes” that will be granted ” The speculative nature of the NPEs disproportionately restricts the Freedoms of Foreign Laws in the Union Law of the establishment of foreign speculative schools and the business freedom of colleges as potential partners of these schools.
During the long -term debate in the plenary of the Supreme Court of Appeal, it was pointed out, inter alia, that with the operation of private universities “free education will become a business education, students will be clients and teachers, private teachers and all in spite of the fact that the constitutional legislator”.
On the other hand, it has been argued that the state monopoly in the field of education has ceased to exist because of the European Union and the cross -border establishment of foreign universities in Greece is possible.
Among other things, it was emphasized that 40,000 Greeks are migrating and studying at universities abroad, and with the functioning of foreign universities in Greece, students will be enrolled in the branches of foreign universities that will operate in our country.
In this context, the plenary is called upon to decide, inter alia, if the provisions of Law 5094/2024 are in accordance with Article 16 of the Constitution, if the procedure of Constitutional Review procedure is bypassed by Article 110 of the Constitution and if these provisions are covered by constitutional requirements for constitutional requirements. Branch teaching staff, state supervision, self -government).
In addition, if the plenary concludes that the Constitution only allows only a purely state higher education system, the question arises whether it has, in this case, the law of the European Union and subsequently if a purely state higher education system is in accordance with Union law.
The applicants in the CoE have asked that a preliminary ruling question be sent to the WEU. Their plenary was reserved to issue its decisions.