Greece's Pasok party has sharply criticized the government after the Council of State, the country's highest administrative court, annulled operating licenses for three branches of foreign universities, calling the ruling a sign of collapse in the government's private higher education framework.
Stefanos Parastatidis, head of Pasok's education policy committee, said the government's push to fast-track the commercialization of higher education was implemented through rushed legislation and has now spiraled into "a fiasco of unprecedented scale."
He said there could be no vindication for Pasok in the ruling, given that hundreds of students and their families had already paid tuition and begun their studies, only to see their academic futures thrown into uncertainty.
Mr. Parastatidis said the court's decision effectively signals the collapse of the legal framework introduced by Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis, calling it a development of major significance.
He said Pasok had repeatedly flagged concerns from the outset, including insufficient evidence of parent universities' involvement in fees, guarantees and capital, unverified academic accreditation from institutions' countries of origin, and infrastructure that failed to meet licensing requirements — issues he said the Council of State's own review appears to have confirmed.
Mr. Parastatidis said Pasok would await the court's full published rulings before commenting further on their legal reasoning, but warned that details expected to emerge regarding newer license approvals would prove even more troubling.
The Education Ministry has said the underlying legal framework remains constitutional and pledged that the current academic year would not be disrupted for affected students.