Greek PM Alexis Tsipras and the leader of New Democracy (ND), Kyriakos Mitsotakis debated in a plenary session in parliament, Friday, with Mr Mitsotalis accusing the PM of tolerating lawlessness in Greek universities.
The debate was called at the request of the leader of ND and, apart from the problems of criminality in public universities, also focused on the prospect of founding non-profit tertiary institutions and the ideological foundations of terrorism.
The leader of ND promised he would scrap the current university asylum status in his speech, while he called on the PM to explain why he had allowed the phenomena of grub dealing and criminality to fester in public universities, accusing SYRIZA of handing over the university campuses to the anarchist group “Rouvikonas”.
On his part, Mr Tsipras responded by attributing the phenomena of lawlessness and crime to “society”.
Mr. Tsipras attempted to downplay the situation by saying “you have brought us pictures showing that the walls of the Polytechnic have spray on them.”, adding, “But the polytechnic was burned down during your days, not ours.” The Greek PM claimed the major opposition party was taking aim at public universities to pave the way for the establishment of non-state institutions. Mr Tsipras argued that ND’s plan was to defame and slander the public universities in order to create the need for private universities.