Debate has intensified in recent weeks and months in Greece over the possibility of giving privately run colleges university status, which is currently prohibited by Article 16 of the Greek constitution, write Tino Bromme and Barnaby Britten for The PIE News. Discussions were ignited when opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis seized the occasion of a parliamentary debate on constitutional reform in October to demand the abolishment of the barrier to private universities. Higher education institutions have always been state-owned entities in Greece and their faculty members public servants. However, policy was created during the 1967-74 military junta to prevent communists creating private universities. This principle has since been enshrined in Article 16, adopted in the new constitution of 1974. Some argue that now its function has been inverted, with the left using the exclusion of private providers to defend public education.