- From November 7, 2025, Data Journalists had already revealed the complaints.
- The project was financed through funds from the Recovery Fund.
- Why, although a number of companies specializing in interactive whiteboards took part in the consultation phase, did none of them ultimately participate in the €120 million tender?
by Vangelis Triantis
There have been rapid developments regarding the Ministry of Education tender announced during Niki Kerameos’s term as minister, concerning the procurement of 36,000 interactive whiteboards for primary and secondary schools. According to information obtained by Data Journalists, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is conducting an urgent investigation to determine whether a breach of trust offence against the EU budget has been committed. Several individuals have reportedly already been summoned to testify as witnesses in this context.
In this case, a criminal case file has already been opened following a complaint filed by businessman Giorgos Floras with both the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Hellenic Competition Commission. Last November, Data Journalists published an extensive report on Mr Floras’s formal complaint, which referred to ‘strong indications of collusion among the participating companies within the framework of the tender’. The companies involved were the consortiums ‘WIND-AKTIB’ and ‘COSMOTE-BYTE ABEE’, as well as Vodafone.
As emphasised in the complaint, “if this is proven, the damage to the Greek state and the European Union will be substantial,” since the project was financed through Recovery Fund resources.
The question, of course, is what action the Competition Commission has taken following Mr Floras’s complaint. Data Journalists are publishing a written reply sent by the Commission to Mr Floras, in which the Competition Commission appears to be evasive about whether Mr Floras’s complaint constituted a formal complaint. Meanwhile, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is thoroughly scrutinising the tenders and allegations that have been made. But let us start from the beginning.
The tender for 36,000 interactive whiteboards
The Ministry of Education proceeded with the announcement of an open electronic tender for the “Supply and Installation of Interactive Learning Systems”. The project involved installing 36,000 interactive learning systems, including whiteboards, laptops, interactive projectors and internal wiring, in the classrooms of primary and secondary schools.
According to the tender notice, the project “substantially strengthens the digital transformation of education by introducing new technology into the heart of the educational process: the classroom”.
Financed through Recovery Fund resources, the project had a total cost of nearly €120 million. According to the tender specifications, the criterion for awarding the contract was “the most economically advantageous offer based on the best quality–price ratio”, and the overall contract was divided into three parts: LOT 1 with a budget of €50.163 million, LOT 2 with a budget of €49.425 million, and LOT 3 with a budget of €49.093 million.
Three companies — or rather, three corporate consortiums — participated in the tender: “WIND-AKTIB”, “COSMOTE-BYTE ABEE”, and “VODAFONE”.
Regarding the first part of the project (LOT 1), all three companies submitted bids. More specifically, Vodafone submitted a bid of €40,349,000 excluding VAT, Wind-AKTIB €40,351,000, and Cosmote-Byte ABEE €40,450,000, all excluding VAT. VODAFONE ultimately received the contract because it received the highest score, according to the contract documents published on the government transparency platform Diavgeia. For the second part of the project (LOT 2), two companies submitted bids: COSMOTE-BYTE ABEE with €39,721,000 and VODAFONE with €39,755,000, both excluding VAT. The contract was awarded to the COSMOTE-BYTE ABEE consortium in this section of the tender. Similarly, in the third part of the tender (LOT 3), the WIND–AKTIB consortium was the only bidder, submitting an offer of €39,514,000 excluding VAT. It was subsequently declared the contractor for that section of the project. In short, each of the three companies was awarded one portion of the overall project.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Competition Commission
According to Mr Floras’s complaint, based on publicly available tender data, there appear to be “strong indications of coordination among the participating companies within the framework of the tender”.
More specifically, Mr Floras set out aspects of the tenders that raise questions, point by point. One of these concerns the bids submitted by the three companies. The tender specifications provided that each company could participate in two out of the three sections of the project. In other words, if a company submitted bids for LOT 1 and LOT 2, it would not be permitted to submit a bid for LOT 3. As the complaint notes, “Given this condition, one would expect participants to submit bids in two categories and for competition to emerge in order to drive prices down, in the public interest.”
However, this is not what happened. In fact, all three companies only submitted bids for one section of the tender (LOT 1). In the second section (LOT 2), two companies submitted bids, and in the third section (LOT 3), only one company did so.
Furthermore, as the complaint highlights, “in the sections they lost, the three participating companies offered such laughably small discounts that one might conclude they were certain there would be no real competition and that it was therefore not worth offering larger discounts”. Notably, although each tender was worth more than €40 million (excluding VAT), the discounts ranged from just 0.01% to 0.26% — equating to no more than approximately €4,000 per section.
According to the complaint, this “is entirely unusual if you know there will be competition”. Consequently, questions arise as to whether there was coordination among the participants, unless the supplier had set profit margins so low that even the slightest discount would have been impossible — with all the implications that would have for the tender process.
Another issue raised in the complaint concerns the scores the companies received for their technical proposals. According to Mr Floras, the scores were almost identical, which is statistically unlikely to occur unless the products offered were exactly the same.
The same complaint also highlights another issue. Although several companies specialising in interactive whiteboards participated in the tender consultation phase, ultimately none of them took part in the €120 million tender itself. It is striking that no other company wished to participate.
The Competition Commission is playing with words
Last September, the Competition Commission sent Mr Floras a reply letter. Essentially, the Commission’s officials did not provide a clear answer as to whether Mr Floras’s letter constitutes a complaint in the formal or substantive sense. This makes it seem as though the real issue in this case were semantic definitions rather than whether felonies and distortions of competition may have been committed.
The letter states that the “General Directorate for Competition is conducting an ex officio investigation into public tenders in the information technology and technology sector (hardware, software, and related services, such as consulting and support), in order to determine whether the conditions for the application of Article 1 of Law 3959/2011 on the “Protection of Free Competition” are met.”
It is also noted that “the above investigation, in principle, encompasses all public tenders with a related subject matter”, and that “within the framework of this investigation, on-site inspections were carried out at the offices of companies active in the relevant market”. According to the Competition Commission, “the case remains at the investigation stage”, while the matters raised by Mr Floras “are being jointly assessed within the context of the aforementioned ex officio investigation”.
Read the Competition Commission’s reply letter in full:
Robotics kits worth €30 million
This is not the first Ministry of Education tender for which Mr Floras has filed a formal complaint with the Competition Commission and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. Another complaint was submitted regarding the “Supply of Robotics and STEM Equipment for Education tender”. This tender, worth €30.122 million, involved the procurement of 177,000 robotics kits. It was financed through the Recovery and Resilience Fund and implemented during Niki Kerameos’s tenure at the Ministry of Education.
In a related statement, the Transparency Sector of the “Movement for Democracy” referred to a “scandal of misappropriation of European funds” and a “rigged tender”, setting out the issues it considers serious in point-by-point detail. One of these concerns the “splitting” of the tender into three sections (LOTS). The same thing happened in the €120 million tender for interactive whiteboards. What was striking about this particular tender was that only one company submitted a bid for each section. Specifically, NOVA submitted a bid for LOT 1 only, COSMOTE for LOT 2 only, and VODAFONE for LOT 3 only. In other words, these three telecommunications companies won the sections without any competition, and it was described as “statistically highly unlikely that the three companies would have randomly chosen different sections”, as noted in the statement.
It was also stated that the “choice” of the three companies to submit bids in different sections of the tender “screams” pre-arrangement with central coordination by the Ministry of Education.
Another issue that raises questions is the “negligible discount of just a few thousand euros” offered by the companies, which is exactly what was offered in the tender for the interactive whiteboards. Additionally, the Movement for Democracy’s statement referred to “overpricing of products, with the public sector paying amounts several times higher than their actual value”. For product type R2, for example, the Ministry of Education paid €168 per set, whereas the retail price from POLYTECH is €120.30. For product type S1, the Ministry paid €240 per set, whereas the retail price from POLYTECH is €114.16. For product type R3, the Ministry paid €198 per set, while the retail price from POLYTECH was €100.40. Therefore, “for just the above quantities (88,413 units), which concern only primary education, the difference between retail and tender prices amounted to approximately €8,000,000”.
