The Governing Council of the Government of Extremadura approved on Tuesday the presentation of a contentious-administrative appeal before the Supreme Court against Royal Decree 905/2025 which toughens the conditions for the creation of private universities, because it considers that the rule represents an “interference” in the autonomous powers, which is due to a “sectarian” vision of the government of Pedro Sánchez to limit their implementation, said the spokesperson for the Regional Executive, Elena Manzano.
The Council does not agree with the emergency procedure used to apply this regulation, “since it was not necessary”, nor with the content, since the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities “imposes conditions that make it difficult to create private universities”. Among them, Manzano cited the requirement for a minimum of 4,000 students and a certain number of doctors, which he said would particularly affect the region. As a university professor, she added, “it would be very difficult to comply.”
The spokesperson, who criticized the fact that the allegations of the autonomous communities were not addressed, indicated that, among other issues of a technical nature, Extremadura requests the removal of the obligation to have, beforehand, a favorable report from the Council of Universities and the General Conference of University Policy. He does not understand that it is necessary to address “external” bodies when the powers belong to the Junta de Extremadura, he stressed.
This aspect becomes relevant because the first private university created in Extremadura, Uninde, approved last October by PP and Vox, received an unfavorable report from the General Conference of University Policy. The university also added several objections from the Economic and Social Council of Extremadura. All of this was attempted to be changed with several versions of the project.
For this reason, when the Council requested the opinion of the Council of State on the regional law for the approval of Uninde, which is obligatory, but not binding, this body returned the file because it considered that with the numerous changes introduced it was necessary to restart the entire reassessment process. In other words, give it to the University Policy Conference. The Government of Extremadura decided to submit the project to the Assembly without the opinion of the Council of State, despite a contrary report from the General Councilor of the Council to the process in which he considered that this opinion is essential because it is a “legal requirement”.
On the other hand, the Government of Extremadura also opposes the “retroactive” nature of the rule for projects that began with the previous royal decree and requests the removal of the status of “universities with special characteristics” for those that teach more than 80% of their teaching activity in official bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs under the virtual or hybrid teaching model.
Besides Uninde, which is part of the Global Academic Network (GAN) group, which includes the Autonomous University of Chile and the Extremadura Business School Itae, three other projects for private university centers in Extremadura are being processed: the European University of Extremadura, the CEU Núñez de Balboa University and the Open University of Extremadura.
About The Author
