GREECE: Eviction plan threatens long-standing autonomous neighbourhood and movements in Athens
In early 2026, the region of Attica in Greece advanced a plan to evict the “Community of Squatted Prosfygika” in Athens, marking the fourth state attempt in a decade to displace the community’s residents. Prosfygika on Alexandras Avenue is a historic neighbourhood in Athens. Since 2009, it has been self-managed by a diverse community of approximately 400 residents, including Greeks, refugees, immigrants, mental health and cancer patients, and other vulnerable groups, as well as different social movements, who have organised it as a large-scale autonomous community based on principles of horizontality, right to housing, direct democracy, and mutual aid. It maintains autonomous social services and structures, including a daycare, health clinic, communal bakery, and women’s shelter, which serve both residents and the wider area.
The eviction initiative, funded by European regional grants, proposes redeveloping the building blocks into social housing and hostels. While authorities frame the project as social measures, according to the community and supporting movements and CSOs, it is a politically motivated eviction driven by the government to use the land for economic benefit and suppress the long-standing autonomous movement. The recent eviction threat has triggered big opposition, including a hunger strike by some residents. According to the movements supporting Prosfygika, the eviction would destroy the community and its collective decision-making and criminalise this model of self-governance and mutual aid in favour of gentrification and the state’s profit-driven model.