Whether riding a bicycle, a motorbike or even walking - Athens can be dangerous. As in any big city, there are traffic accidents, but even more people are victims of a different assailant: the air.
Greece is the latest EU country to be accused of failing to meet air quality standards.

The European Commission has added it to a list of nations facing legal action by the bloc, due to high levels of nitrogen dioxide caused by traffic and industry.

"Air pollution is a public health issue because even if we are not aware, we don't smell it or are not aware of the contamination," said European Environment Agency air quality expert Alberto Gonzales Ortis. "The chronic exposure to air pollution is affecting our health via cancer via respiratory deceases, via cardiovascular diseases because what we are breathing has an impact on all our internal organs," he explained. 

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Athens' air may look clean - but nitrogen dioxide is an invisible killer. This is why Greece will appear before the European Court of Justice this year for failing to reduce emissions in the capital, which for a decade now have exceeded permissible limits. 

But Athens is not alone. Both Rome and Naples have persistently breached EU rules on air pollution, as well as other places, including the Bulgarian capital Sofia and the Cypriot capital Nicosia. While a coroner in London registered air pollution as the cause of death of nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, the first time that has happened in the UK.  

What these cities all have in common are high population densities, traffic congestion, and warm weather. 

"To create holes in the ozone we need heat and we need sunlight, so the highest concentrations normally happen in southern Europe and around the Mediterranean," said Gonzales Ortis. "Nitrogen dioxide is a compound coming mainly from road transport. The location with the highest concentration is in Istanbul and the second-highest values are in Paris and Athens."

According to the AirVisual app, which takes one-off readings of air quality, the amount of nitrogen dioxide in the center of Athens is seven times above the safe levels identified by the World Health Organization. Ideally, scientists would measure readings over a period of weeks or even months but this single reading does suggest that the air Athenians are breathing is not safe.

"It's sad that every so often the EU has to bring cities to court because simply we are the 'bad students,'" Dimitris Ibrahim, the Climate & Energy Policy Officer at WWF Greece, told CGTN Europe. "But the situation now is even more serious. We're talking about deaths, people losing their lives. We're talking about our children, the elderly, the vulnerable ones."

 Ibrahim added, "I live in the center of Athens in an area with high levels of air pollution and I'm afraid for my child and I'm sure whoever is listening to this and lives in high-density areas will be concerned - for their children, their loved ones and even themselves." 
The pandemic helped reduce emissions dramatically as lockdowns cut transport and industry. And recently, authorities have revived the system of restricting traffic in Athens, using alternating odd and even number plates.
Air filters have even been placed on some of the busiest streets. But the question now is: how will Greeks move forward with cleaner air, when regulations are lifted and the economy opens up?