A double episode occurred in the PASOK parliamentary group between Nikos Androulakis and MPs Odysseus Konstantinopoulos and Nadias Giannakopoulou, which ended early Tuesday evening.
After that, the PASOK president hinted that he would raise the issue of party discipline – despite assurances to the contrary from Harilaou Trikoupis executives.
“Nobody understood why we are saying ‘no’ to the Pierrakakis bill,” Odysseas Constantinopoulos reportedly said, who, addressing the PASOK leader, insisted that there should have been a meeting on the party’s strategy on the issue in question.
“You did not call us to tell you our opinion those of us who studied outside or have our children outside, as you had told us,” Konstantinopoulos added, raising the tension in the room.
“So what do you propose?”, Androulakis asked him in a mocking tone, only to be followed by the following dialogue:
Konstantinopoulos: Papandreou had voted for non-state universities under Karamanlis
– Androulakis: Papandreou has a firm view on the revision of Article 16. You can’t cut and paste the words of a former prime minister
– Odysseus: I’ll give my opinion whenever I want and I think it’s right.
The PASOK president followed up with a confrontation with Nadia Giannakopoulou, who has also been in favour of voting for the Pierrakakis bill.
Ms Giannakopoulou said that the Scandinavian model for universities promoted by the party leadership is not in its programme, and noted that the parliamentary group met very late for this bill.
“This in itself is a serious operational problem, we are not officials to ratify decisions made by two or three people,” the MP added.
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We close our eyes that there are already dozens of colleges – many of them of bad time – that due to the European framework are producing graduates with approved degrees and full professional rights,” Nadia Giannakopoulou added, adding that “the position is wrong, will damage us and does not give us any opportunity to claim, neither centrist forces, nor center-left.”
The PASOK MP claimed that by voting against the motion “we are identifying ourselves with those who are fighting for the only monopoly that exists in Greece, that of higher education”.
She concluded by informing that she has personally addressed the party president to present her opinion, for which there is nothing to modify it”.
