VZCZCXRO5734
PP RUEHAST
DE RUEHTH #1507/01 1631313
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 121313Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY ATHENS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5768
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ATHENS 001507 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR EUR/SE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV SCUL PREL GR
SUBJECT: STUDENTS PROTEST PROPOSED UNIVERSITY REFORMS, SHUT 
DOWN ATHENS CENTER 
 
 
ATHENS 00001507  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED -- PLEASE HANDLE ACCORDINGLY. 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  SUMMARY: Following over a month of sit-ins, 
strikes, and protest rallies opposing GoG plans to reform the 
Greek university system -- especially allowing private, 
non-profit universities to operate -- left-wing and communist 
student groups and some university professors on June 8 
organized a 10,000-strong demonstration.  The central Athens 
march all but stopped transportation in the city.  When the 
march turned violent, police responded with tear gas and 
detained forty persons, 4-5 of whom remain under arrest.  The 
GoG has stood firm (thus far) in its plans to go ahead with 
the reforms, despite calls for Education Minister Yiannakou's 
resignation from a representative of the left-oriented 
professors' union, which claims she did not adequately 
consult with them, students or parents.  Opposition PASOK 
leader Papandreou was less resolute, initially supporting the 
education reforms, then backpedaling in the face of protests 
from PASOK's own student organization.  He is now calling for 
the reforms to be delayed.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  University students and university teaching staff 
held a 10,000-strong demonstration in central Athens June 8 
to express opposition to government's intention to pass 
comprehensive university education reforms.  Anarchists and 
various leftists groups used the opportunity to attack banks, 
stores, cars, and a major hotel.  Police, well accustomed to 
large Athens demonstrations, used tear gas and detained 40 
persons - Greek police told us that four to five 
demonstrators would be prosecuted.  Ten policemen and four 
civilians were injured.  The demonstrations nearly paralyzed 
public transportation and vehicular traffic through the 
center of Athens.  A smaller, follow-on student demonstration 
took place on June 9 and another is planned for June 15. 
 
¶3.  (U)  The education reforms, the text of which has not yet 
been released or officially presented to Parliament, are said 
to touch upon such important issues as: university asylum 
(which prevents police from entering university campuses 
without permission and therefore creates havens for 
criminals); eliminating "lifelong students" by capping years 
of study; re-evaluating professors' teaching obligations and 
promotion to tenured faculty positions; and deregulating 
university education to allow and recognize private, 
non-profit universities in Greece.  Currently, Greece only 
recognizes degrees from free, public Greek universities where 
placement is based on a nationwide entrance exam.  While many 
of the proposed reforms would take immediate effect, the 
establishment and recognition of non-profit, private 
universities would require a Constitutional amendment that 
would not be ratified until the next Parliament meets.  Many 
who oppose the amendments have focused on what they call the 
"commercialization" of the public university education or 
"surrender of public universities to private interests." 
They argue that introducing non-profit institutions would 
remove the egalitarianism of the Greek university system, 
higher salaries at private schools would attract professors 
and administrators away from the public university system, 
and unqualified, rich students would be able to "buy" their 
way in to private schools. 
 
¶4.  (U) In actuality, such reforms are desperately needed. 
The asylum policy, a holdover from post-junta leftist 
ideology, forbids police from entering campuses for any 
reason.  In effect, anarchists, not students, regularly use 
university campuses to launch Molotov cocktails from or to 
hide in after attacks in the city.  Facilities are poorly 
maintained; one Athens professor told poloff he finally paid 
a student from his pocket to repair long-broken light 
fixtures in his dark lecture hall.  If there were competition 
for students, he hoped that the state might take more 
seriously maintaining and protecting its facilities. 
 
¶5.  (U) The current recognition in Greece of only public 
university degrees means that public university graduates 
have a monopoly on seats in graduate programs and highly 
sought-after civil service jobs.  Faced with a revolution in 
the failing university system, students have predictably 
responded in a reactionary way, seeking to preserve a 
privileged position from the risks of competition.  Moreover, 
Greek students fear that non-profit private schools, after 
attracting the best professors, would quickly be seen as 
having higher quality than state schools; that the students' 
public school degrees will be seen as "useless;" and that 
private sector companies would then prefer to hire graduates 
of private institutions.  What seemed to have started as a 
leftist movement that was holding other students' academic 
progress hostage appears to have gained traction among a 
wider grouping of students, as witnessed by the massive 
10,000-strong demonstration in Athens on June 8. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Most universities and technological institutes 
have been closed since mid-May by sit-ins and indefinite 
student and academic staff strikes over these proposed 
reforms.  A professor told us that the lockdown has been so 
complete that lab animals at the Aristotelian University are 
dying--staff are sneaking on campus at 3 AM to feed those 
that remain alive.  Education Minister Marietta Yiannakou has 
been criticized for not averting this reaction with better 
planning, and a representative of the professors' union has 
called for her resignation.  Opposition PASOK leader George 
Papandreou, who supported these reforms in the past, has 
wavered in the face of PASOK's student organization and his 
own poor public opinion ratings, and is now against the 
reforms. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  COMMENT:  Many Greeks, especially professors, 
recognize that reforms to the university system are long 
overdue and sorely needed.  We have long pushed for the GoG 
to recognize degrees from private institutions, which would, 
among other things, benefit private U.S. higher learning 
institutions already here.  There are no signs that the 
government will back down, but now that Papandreou is 
questioning these reforms, their eventual passage in 
Parliament is less certain.  And while protests of all 
varieties are frequent occurrences in Athens, the public is 
aggravated that student demonstrations keep turning the city 
center into a traffic quagmire.  The fact that primarily 
left-wing and not politically mainstream students organized 
this protest suggests the issue has not yet reached a 
critical point.  But as nearly all university students feel 
"threatened" by the introduction of the non-profit 
universities, the situation could turn more explosive. 
COUNTRYMAN