The Athens University Dean Thodoros Fortsakis warned on Monday that the university might find itself unable to pay basic electricity and heating bills in the second half of the year unless something is done. He called for the return of administrative staff placed on an “availability scheme” last summer and asked that the fired finance ministry cleaners be transferred to the university instead. He called for laws that would allow the university to hire its own security guards and cleaners.

University academics stressed that there had been no research done to ascertain that the administrative staff that had been fired had in any way been a surplus. The university is currently understaffed and underfunded but having to hope with an additional 1,700 students.

Mr. Fortsakis along with other deans of the university, faculty members, administrative staff and students formed a human chain around the main university building in central Athens as a symbolic gesture to show that the university was in danger and needed state support.