This afternoon, Belgian police, acting on orders from the European Parliament, prevented members of the "indignados"* movement from gaining accredited access to the Parliament to attend a meeting organized by Spanish GUE/NGL MEP Willy Meyer.

Greek MEP Nikos Chountis explained they had been invited into parliament to participate in a meeting and after a lengthy delay a group of seven people was finally allowed to enter and meet MEPs from different political groups. The rest of the group faced a histrionic security presence to prevent them from even coming near Parliament buildings.

"The security services behaved in an unacceptable manner to prevent the indignados from entering and treated them like criminals, instead of ordinary people coming in peace to present their concerns. Parliament services, without any justification, even tried to deny our right to invite citizens to the institution, in violation of Article 1.3 of Parliament's security rules. For this reason, we will send a formal complaint to the President" said Willy Meyer, calling it "yet another example of the rickety state of democratic values ​​and citizens' rights in Europe today."

GUE/NGL MEPs Sabine Lösing, Gabi Zimmer, Paul Murphy and group President Lothar Bisky were also present at the meeting.

*The "indignados" movement began on May 15th and is a series of ongoing peaceful demonstrations and camps in Spain demanding real democracy. Last weekend, a group of indignados arrived in Brussels after an 80 day walk to highlight their call for radical change in politics.

GUE/NGL Press Contacts:

David Lundy +32 485 50 58 12

Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20

david.lundy@europarl.europa.eu

gabrielle.kavanagh@europarl.europa.eu

European United Left / Nordic Green Left

European Parliamentary Group

www.guengl.eu