The bill for the estabndlishment of private universities was passed with 159 votes from New Democracy MPs and one MP from the neo-Nazi party "Spartans". 129 MPs voted against and 11 “absent”. The only social and political alliance of the government is the neo-Nazis, indicative of the reactionary nature not only of the new law, but of the overall policy supported by capital and the EU in Greece.

The militant student movement threw the law on private universities into the trash despite it is passed in the parliament. A pulsating youthful river of some 30,000 people flooded the centre of Athens, during the vote inside the Parliament. Around 200 student associations from all over Greece called for the protest, showing that two months after the start of the student mobilisation, the pulse of the struggle is beating loudly.

Despite the efforts of the police to break up the demonstration, attacking the demonstration in the Syntagma square with tear gas and batons, they did not succeed. The students managed to regroup in front of the Parliament. A General Assembly was then held. In the evening there was another massive demonstration merging of the student and the feminist movement.

Thousands of students came to Athens from universities all over the country. If the New Democracy government has succeeded in anything, it is to revive the student movement and create a broader public "No" to private universities and market education.

On a superficial analysis, the "battle" to pass or not pass the bill seems to have been lost. One of the key demands of the movement was not vindicated. But the "war" has not been decided, and the government's "victory" can only be described as a Pyrrhic one. The university education movement, therefore, initially succeeded in isolating New Democracy and cracking the bourgeois political camp, as well as beating the government's core argumentation. Although, from the point of view of the anti-capitalist left, there is no illusion that the above would be sufficient to change the negative state of affairs, the political pressure exerted by the movement and the cracks it created in the bourgeois bloc are qualitative elements that should not be underestimated. Especially while the 'rift' in the education sector remains open.

The bill may have passed by the Parliament, but it does not seem to have "passed" to the society. The "blow" caused by the struggle of students weakens -even if only partially- the chronic effort to undermine public education in favour of a private one. Ative mobilisation and participation of social groups outside the university could have been greater (if a similar goal had been set by all the forces of the left), but nevertheless, a large bloc of social forces was formed, a bloc that opposes the privatisation of education and social goods. This bloc can make a decisive contribution in the next stage of the struggle.

The above is not intended to christen as "victory" the "defeat". The possible disappointment that militants -many of whom participated in their first major round of mobilisation- may feel at the passing of the bill is natural and consequential. However, whether a social movement 'wins' or not is not judged on the first 'roll of the dice' nor is it determined solely by what happens inside parliament, especially when it is carried out in such politically adverse conditions. Struggles always leave legacies that, consciously or unconsciously, are imprinted on the collective heritage. After all, no struggle and no movement has been characterised by an exclusively upward trajectory, nor has it achieved only victories. The magnificent mobilisations are not a "desperate attempt" to overturn the law without depth and continuity, but the beginning of an even more comprehensive struggle in defence of public education and opposition to any attempt to privatise/commercialise it, and rupture with the policies of government, capital and the EU.

The government and the media considered the youth as a "written off generation", "disengaged" on TikTok and Instagram, unable to engage with wider social issues. Yet it turned out to be the opposite: The youth has a social criterion and conscience, they are not willing to passively accept the devaluation of their future, their labour prospects. It was not, however, only one side of the bourgeois powers that was "shaken". Some organisations within the student movement also seemed surprised. In the first stage, an important role was played by the fact that the politics of the bourgeoise forces were defeated within the university assemblies, succeeding in convincing the students of what was really at stake regarding the establishment of private universities. At the same time, the connection between the student struggle and the struggle of the farmers and workers was consistently sought. On a political level, a decisive element was that the privatisation of social goods was highlighted as a global issue that is not simply limited to education, but also to other areas such as transportation and healthcare. A deeper politicisation of the youth movements is a necessary objective. Young people's lives have changed radically, with poverty forcing the majority of them into flexible precarious work in order to survive. We need a higher political focus which can convince young people that things can and will really change through victories today that will ensure a better standard of living. All of the above cannot happen unless we find new forms of struggle and new structures inside the movement that can break free from bureaucracy.

The political proposal to make this happen is there. It was collectively formulated -albeit contradictions- within the movement and played a central role. It is the political proposal that spoke from the beginning about the need for the struggle of students and education workers to escalate, deepen and unite. This political proposal of the Anti-capitalist Left in the student movement and more broadly, was decisively followed by an "army" of militants which entered the struggle with a logic of a lasting subversive struggle, mass assemblies and a revitalisation of active participation in the movement. So that the online-exams were blocked, the rectorate of the Athens National University was transformed into a centre of struggle on the days of the law's passing, there were a common students Coordination General Assembly, there were joint student-worker marches. Maybe the above actions were not embraced by all the political forces on the movement. However, the movement is a "living" organism that rejects and accepts different lines by phase and period. In view of the new and more complex cycle that is opening up in the education sector, the "battle" of hegemony will be determined by the actual mobilizing. In the following weeks, a new round of general assemblies in university faculties is planned, as the student movement will not surrender the weapons of struggle just because the government has passed the bill in parliament. The fight continues!