Swedish PM's response to Orbán starts out amicably, ends with jab

The spat between the Swedish and Hungarian prime ministers over public safety in Sweden continued on Wednesday with Ulf Kristersson's response. The Swedish Prime Minister wrote an open letter to Viktor Orbán, who first mentioned underage girls in Sweden being recruited by criminal gangs for acts of violence at the Fight Club camp held over the weekend, which Kristersson then took issue with.

The Swedish refutation and the fact that it turned out that the data quoted by the Hungarian PM was greatly exaggerated did not prevent the Hungarian Prime Minister from making another comment. In a post on X, he wrote that "we feel for the Swedish people who are stuck in disorder" and then listed figures indicating how much lower the number of illegal migrants is in Hungary and that there are no gang-related explosions here. Answering a question from the press at Wednesday's government briefing, Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister's Office said that there is nothing the Hungarian PM should apologize for. He added that in fact, it was the Swedes who should apologize for all the lies they have been spreading about Hungary in recent years.

In his letter to Viktor Orbán, Ulf Kristersson wrote that he understands the situation surrounding the election campaign, now that Orbán has a challenger. However, Sweden and the Swedish people do not interfere, nor do they want to interfere in the Hungarian election campaign. "Sweden and the Swedish people have always been friends of Hungary and the Hungarian people, as you know", he wrote at the beginning of his letter addressed to "Viktor." He then listed the shared history of the two nations: Raoul Wallenberg's lifesaving efforts in Budapest during the Holocaust, as well as 1956 and Sweden's assistance to Hungarian refugees. In his view, democratic countries help each other, which is why Sweden has helped those who were being overrun by Russian tanks: in 1956 that was Hungary and now it is Ukraine.

From this point on, Kristersson switched to a sterner tone and began to criticize Orbán, arguing that he was now having coffee with the leader of the country which had suppressed the 1956 uprising. "Hungary and the West are not strengthened by closing the door to their European friends or by attacking each other and the very things that distinguish us from barbarism — democracy and the rule of law."

Finally, he quoted Orbán's words from 2007, when he spoke about how deeply Hungary is embedded in the West and Western culture. "The oil might come from the east, but freedom always comes from the west", Orbán said then, adding that "democracy cannot be directed from above, it can only grow from the hearts of people". In closing, Kristersson extended his country's greetings and wished Hungary "a free, peaceful and successful election".