Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

SWEDEN AND UKRAINE

Swedish foreign minister misses Kyiv summit after forgetting passport

Foreign Minister Tobias Billström was due to attend an EU summit in Kyiv along with other EU foreign ministers but was stopped at the Poland-Ukraine border after forgetting his passport.

Published: 3 October 2023 13:52 CEST

Swedish foreign minister misses Kyiv summit after forgetting passport

Foreign minister Tobias Billström. File photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

Officials on the border would not let Billström across, diplomatic sources told Austrian newspaper Die Presse, who were first to report the administrative hiccup, which left Billström unable to board the eight-hour train headed for Kyiv along with his foreign counterparts.

Billström’s press secretary Anna Erhardt would not confirm why the minister, who was not present in any photos or videos from the meeting, did not attend.

“There was a logistical obstacle,” she told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. “Other than that, we do not comment on details of ministerial trips.”

Sweden was instead represented by the country’s ambassador to Ukraine, Martin Åberg.

The informal EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Kyiv on October 2nd. Photo: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP/TT

Billström does not appear to have missed much at the summit, which was an informal meeting to show solidarity with Ukraine, Die Presse reports. The meeting was held in a bomb shelter in the basement of a luxury hotel.

He was not the only foreign minister who didn’t turn up: Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, recipient of the Russian Order of Friendship, declined the invitation, while Latvian foreign minister Krišjanis Karinš and Polish foreign minister Zbigniew Rau both had to pull out after catching Covid-19.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast.

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

Url copied to clipboard!