The second, repeat competitive tender for the lease of the canteen at Artemida 3rd Primary School also proved unsuccessful. The item was listed as the 20th on the agenda of the 30th meeting of the Spata – Artemida, which met on Friday 18 September at 9 am at the Municipal Offices on the corner of Dim. Chr. Bekas and Vas. Pavlou Streets, with the wording ‘acknowledgement of the unsuccessful outcome of the repeat (second) open competitive tender and direct award of the lease’.
‘Unsuccessful’ means that no admissible tender was submitted. When this happens twice in a row, the law allows the authority to bypass the tender process and award the lease directly, that is, to negotiate with any interested party. This is the final step before the canteen is simply left closed for the year.
The fact that the decision is taken by the Municipal Committee and not by the school or a school committee is not a mere technicality. Under Article 28 of Law 5056/2023, municipal school committees were abolished at the end of June 2024 and their responsibilities, along with the canteens, contracts and revenue, were transferred to the relevant municipality. Since then, every school canteen tender in Artemida and Spata has been handled by the Town Hall.
But why is a canteen at a primary school in Artemida still unclaimed? Bids in these tenders are calculated per pupil, so turnover is directly linked to the size of the school and to how many children actually make purchases. The prospective tenant is responsible for equipment, licences, health checks and training in hygiene regulations, whilst the list of products they are permitted to sell is strictly defined by the state. Opening hours are limited to two short breaks a day, for nine months of the year. At the same time, more and more parents are sending their children to school with a packed lunch from home. The result is that in recent years, unsuccessful canteen tenders have been taking place in local authorities across the country, and Artemida is no exception.
What does this mean in practice for parents of Year 3 pupils? As long as there is no tenant, the school canteen is not open and pupils must bring their own packed lunch from home. The school has no authority over this process and cannot speed it up. For information regarding the school’s operations, please call 22940 24702 or email mail@3dim-artem.att.sch.gr.
Anyone interested in taking over the canteen should contact Spata–Artemida Town Council. Direct award does not mean that the position has been given to anyone; it means that the Municipality can now reach an agreement with the first person to express a serious interest. The telephone number for the Municipal Committee’s secretariat is 213 2007377.
The Commission’s decision will be published on the Diafania website. We will provide an update as soon as it is published, detailing exactly what has been approved and under what conditions.
Source: Municipality of Spata – Artemida, Notice of the 30th meeting of the Municipal Committee, ref. no. 73144/14-09-2026, item 20.
