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Pizzeria anarchists reject rents and ownership

A week after the police operation to evict a group of anarchist squatters from the so-called Pizzeria Anarchia in Vienna’s 2nd district some of the young anarchists have given a press conference to give their side of events.

Published: 4 August 2014 14:26 CEST
Pizzeria anarchists reject rents and ownership
Four of the activists, with a dog. Photo: APA/Hochmuth

According to the Interior Ministry 500 policeman were deployed to evict the 19 squatters and 1,000 extra police were on stand-by in the city “for other measures”. There has been wide criticism of what was seen as a disproportionate response from the state.

Four representatives of the Pizzeria Anarchia group were present at the press conference, which was held in a cafe near to the former squat.

"We’re not able to afford average rents," said one of the activists. They said that their occupation of the house was a "loud statement" against the practices of the building’s owner.

The building is currently owned by Castella GmbH. The anarchists were invited to move into the building in 2011 for six months, allegedly as part of a plan to persuade existing tenants to move out so the building could be developed.

"For us, it is not illegitimate to live in an empty house that is not being used," said one of the men, when asked whether the group would be seeking a similar place to squat.

"We are an association for the use of vacant spaces," another activist said. The former occupants of Pizzeria Anarchia still meet regularly, but are currently living in different places.

They said that their "Projekt Pizza" had been working well up until the eviction. They had made pizzas in exchange for donations, had held panel discussions and readings and had set up a bicycle repair shop. The remaining tenants in the building had always reacted positively to them, the activists said.

They said that the tenants had been harassed by the landlord, who turned off the gas without warning and had unexpectedly turned up in the night. “His attitude towards the tenants was the reason we stayed on for longer,” one activist said.

They denied that the squat had been booby trapped when the police came to evict them, but said that the barricades they had built proved difficult to break down. It took the police ten hours to clear the squat.

They also said they had not resisted arrest when the police did get to them. Fifteen men and four women were arrested for attempted aggravated result and resisting the state, but were released the next day.


Protestors disrupt traffic Sunday evening.  Photo: Paul Gillingwater

 

 

 

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POLICE

Why are Vienna’s police officers trying to get away from the capital?

Austria's Ministry of Interior is grappling with a surge in police transfer requests from Vienna. Police unions have warned the situation is worsening morale and contributing to staffing shortages.

Published: 3 September 2024 16:53 CEST
Why are Vienna's police officers trying to get away from the capital?

A growing number of police officers in Vienna are applying for transfers to other federal states, but lengthy waiting times have frustrated many. 

According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), 580 civil servants in Vienna have submitted transfer requests, for a total of 799 across Austria. Despite these applications, the waiting list is long, and it can take several years, or even more than a decade, for a transfer to be approved.

Newspaper Kurier reported on one such case. Alex M (the officer asked to remain anonymous, the report said) is a Vienna police officer waiting 13 years to transfer to another state. M. initially applied for a transfer to Lower Austria but also to a second federal state without success. “Every year, you only move up a few places. It’s very gruelling,” he told the newspaper.

READ ALSO: How Austria wants to attract more police officers

Why are officers ‘fleeing’?

Kurier said the primary reason for M.’s desire to transfer is the overwhelming amount of overtime required in Vienna, a complaint voiced by other officers. Police officers in the capital logged over 2.2 million overtime hours last year alone, with some, like M., working up to 140 extra hours per month, Kurier said. 

Most police officers in Vienna come from other federal states, and many wish to return to their home regions after a few years of service. However, the high number of transfer requests and the limited availability of positions in other states mean that only a few requests are approved yearly.

‘It’s important to come clean’

Police unions have expressed concerns about the impact of these long waits on morale and the broader staffing crisis in Vienna.

Walter Strallhofer, a police unionist, criticised the unrealistic expectations set during recruitment. “Police students from the federal states are promised during recruitment that they will soon be able to leave Vienna. But that’s not true. It’s important to come clean with people. When you come to Vienna, you stay here for at least the next ten years.”, he said.

READ ALSO: When are police officers in Austria allowed to use their weapons?

Exceptions to the long wait times are made only in cases of social hardship, such as serious illness of family members. 

The BMI is exploring options to speed up the transfer process, including adjusting admission quotas to accommodate more officers from states with high transfer request numbers.

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