State land encroached on by citizens
The phenomenon of appropriating state land is huge in Greece, according to figures submitted in Parliament yesterday by Alternate Finance Minister Tryfon Alexiadis.
Even local authorities have been found to have usurped state land, while in Attica alone eight out of 10 state properties have been breached by private parties.
That has led to millions of square meters of land being claimed by usurpers as their own, highlighting the problems that state authorities face in their efforts to utilize public land, while also illustrating the inability of the state to protect its land.
The data that Alexiadis presented, in response to a question by New Democracy deputy Evangelos Basiakos, prove that the competent authority for public property is unable to handle the problem owing to being understaffed.
The people who have appropriated state property appear in court and tax records as legal owners, presenting title deeds which they have created themselves or their predecessors, or the original usurpers after 1884.
In the past the Finance Ministry had processed a plan providing for the legalization of most appropriated public land through the acquisition of the properties by the transgressors based on their objective value, but it never got off the drawing board.
