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Sweden-Hungary relations turn frosty as diplomatic row escalates

A diplomatic row over Budapest's new family policy heated up between Sweden and Hungary on Wednesday.

Published: 20 February 2019 14:05 CET
Updated: 20 February 2019 15:37 CET

Sweden-Hungary relations turn frosty as diplomatic row escalates

Swedish Social Affairs Minister Annika Strandhäll. Photo: Tomas Oneborg/SvD/TT

Sweden said it had summoned Hungary's ambassador to the foreign ministry.

“The meeting will take place today … in Stockholm,” foreign ministry spokesperson Anton Dahlquist told AFP, refusing to disclose other details.

On February 12th, Sweden's Social Democratic Social Affairs Minister Annika Strandhäll wrote on Twitter that Prime Minister Viktor Orban's seven-point family planning policy “reeks of the 1930s” and that “what is happening in Hungary is alarming”.

“Now Orban wants to have more 'real' Hungarian children. This kind of policy will harm the autonomy for which women have struggled for decades,” Strandhäll said.

Several days later, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Sweden's ambassador had been summoned and informed that Strandhäll's comments were “unacceptable”.

“Hungary is spending money on families and Sweden is spending it on migrants,” Szijjarto said.

At the weekend, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen called Strandhäll a “poor sick creature” on television, remarks Strandhäll has refused to comment.

The new family policy laid out by Orban, who fiercely opposes immigration to Hungary from the Middle East and Africa, is aimed at stemming Hungary's plummeting population trend by giving young couples incentives to have children.

The new measures include interest-free housing and family-friendly car loans, and exempting women from income tax once they have their fourth child.

“This – not immigration – is the response of the Hungarian people,” Orban said.

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'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.

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