Center-right main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday promised to scrap the current asylum status granted to university campuses in the country if he’s elected as the next premier, amid a surge of press reports over the recent period claiming that schools’ premises serve as “havens” for criminal activity, drug use, vandals and self-styled anarchist collectives.
“We want universities where students and teachers aren’t afraid; universities that we are not ashamed of … I pledge that the no space will be occupied in our public universities. The gangs that that today exist there will be eradicated,” in an address to academics in central Athens on Tuesday afternoon.
He also promised to establish an evaluation process for higher education institutions and allow universities and other tertiary schools the right to determine how many undergraduates they will accept for admission every year.
The current universal asylum framework was reinstituted by the leftist-rightist Tsipras government in 2016.
