The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports has convened a meeting of the Extraordinary University Council for next 7 June, whose unique point of the day will be the debate on the Royal Decree on urgent rationalization measures of public spending in education which includes, among other matters, the increase of university fees, the universities' deficits or the changes in the teaching and researching commitment time for lecturers.

In this morning's meeting of the ordinary University Council, which was chaired by the Secretary of State for Education, Montserrat Gomendio, the Rectors have expressed their disagreement with the Ministry for the contents of the Royal Decree on university grants by which students will be required a 5,5 mark to apply for a grant and a 6 to apply for a scholarship. In both cases, the mark is increased by 0,5. The Rector of the University of Oviedo, Vicente Gotor, pointed out after the meeting that the universities had demanded the postponement of the implementation of this measure.

Both the CRUE and the Ministry were pleased with the atmosphere of "cordiality" and "normality" in which the talks were held. "We do not agree with the decree of thresholds because we consider that it will affect the families' finances, which are already going through hard times", has pointed out the President of The Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities, Adelaida de la Calle.