In 2025, dozens of activists and academics gathered at the 53rd European Group Conference in Malmö to speak, debate, learn and, ultimately, breathe collectively around a question with infinite ramifications: abolitionist practice. The meeting sought to break with the dichotomy between theory and practice, the street and the university, in order to address, in a horizontal and committed way, the dismantling of oppressive and punitive structures. It was not an abstract debate but a thoughtful reflection of something shaking the world—from Los Angeles to Gaza, from Buenos Aires to Johannesburg: the need and desire to abolish the repressive institutions that generate multiple forms of oppression and exploitation.

Building on that momentum, a collective of activists and academics from Euskal Herria organised the 54th European Group Conference in Vitoria-Gasteiz from 1 to 4 September 2026, bringing together organisations and collectives including Salhaketa Nafarroa, Salhaketa Araba, Basque Country University, the European Group Working Group Fear and Looting in the Periphery, and many others. We shared the abolitionist and transformative spirit that inspired the Malmö conference. We inhabit a world in flames, undergoing an accelerated process of fascistisation, intensifying policing and environmental devastation. Today, more than ever, it is essential to abolish the conditions that make this destruction possible.

We believe it is necessary to keep moving forward. For this reason, we invited participants to collectively think about, imagine and activate alternatives: collective alternatives to institutions of domination such as the police, prisons, migrant detention centres and systems of mass surveillance; alternatives to the infrastructural systems of control and resource management that subject us to a way of life that is as infamous as it is unsustainable; alternatives for building an extensive, community-managed network of care. Alternatives, in short, to the punitive-security culture that permeates and contaminates our societies and our relationships.

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