By the start of the next academic year, all higher education institutions will be required to submit comprehensive campus security plans, a move announced by Education Minister Sofia Zacharaki during a recent meeting with university rectors in Halkidiki.
As part of the reforms, students facing criminal prosecution for acts of violence against academic staff or peers, or for causing major damage to university property, will automatically have their student status suspended for up to 24 months. If convicted in court, expulsion will be mandatory. These measures mark a significant tightening of discipline within Greek universities, which have historically operated with considerable autonomy and minimal policing.
Currently, only 8 of Greece’s 24 universities have submitted fully developed safety plans. These include major institutions such as the National Technical University of Athens, the Athens University of Economics and Business, and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The Ministry of Education has deemed the remaining plans either incomplete or lacking in critical details.
Minister Zacharaki also outlined a series of institutional responsibilities that will be strictly enforced. Universities will need to establish functioning disciplinary bodies with the authority to launch investigations without delay and conclude them within two months. Rectors and faculty members who fail to meet their duties will face disciplinary and administrative consequences, with automatic penalties in cases of missed deadlines or non-compliance.
Each university is required to update its internal security framework by the end of July. This includes finalizing internal regulations, fully staffing their security and protection units, and ensuring that academic ID cards are used to control access to university premises. In urban campuses, this system must be operational by the end of 2025 and will be supported by electronic access-monitoring technologies as part of a broader campus safety infrastructure.
Additionally, the government plans to introduce a new legal framework for handling violence in universities, modeled on Greece’s existing laws addressing domestic and sports-related violence. These changes will prioritize judicial processing of such cases and impose harsh penalties, particularly for organized acts of aggression on campus.
Students who are found to have caused damage to university property will be held financially responsible. If they fail to pay for repairs, the debt will be reported to the national tax authority for collection.
To support these changes, the Ministry of Education will also establish a Violence Monitoring Observatory and has left open the possibility of emergency funding for institutions in need. Separately, upcoming legislation will address the issue of inactive students—those who are enrolled but not actively participating—offering more favorable terms for working students, individuals with disabilities, and student-athletes.
