STOCKHOLM/BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson accused his Hungarian counterpart of spreading "outrageous lies" on Monday, after Viktor Orban said the Nordic country was "collapsing" as gangs had hired hundreds of children as assassins.
Orban, a eurosceptic nationalist who is facing what could be a tough election in 2026, has regularly sought to rally his supporters by portraying a moral decline in other Western nations, and contrasting them with Hungary.
"The abandonment of traditional values, the neglect of common sense, and weak governance have led to barbarism taking root in the home of one of Europe's greatest nations," Orban wrote on X early on Monday.
Speaking in an accompanying video and citing a German news report, the Hungarian leader said over 280 underage girls in Sweden had been arrested for murder.
Sweden has acknowledged it has a problem with gang violence, including with gangs recruiting children.
In total eight girls aged 15-17 were suspected of murder or manslaughter in 2024 in Sweden, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, the government agency responsible for keeping crime statistics.
The Swedish government last week said it planned to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 13 from 15, following a rise in gangs' recruitments of children.
In March it said its homicide and manslaughter rate dropped sharply last year to its the lowest since 2014, as increased surveillance lessened gang crime that had pushed gun-related deaths to the highest level in the European Union.
Responding to the X posts, Sweden's prime minister said Orban was "desperate" ahead of next year's vote.
"These are outrageous lies. Not surprising coming from the man who is dismantling the rule of law in his own country. Orban is desperate ahead of the upcoming Hungarian election," Kristersson wrote on X.
Orban has often clashed with the European Commission over his government's migration policies and his moves to curb media freedoms and LGBTQ rights.
He delayed Sweden's NATO accession in 2022 and 2023, citing grievances over Swedish criticism of Hungary's record on democracy and the rule of law.
Zoltan Novak, an analyst at the Centre for Fair Political Analysis, a Hungarian think tank, said Sweden appeared to be an almost random target and that Orban could just as well have attacked other nations such as France or Germany.
(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm, and Anita Komuves in Budapest, editing by Terje Solsvik and Andrew Heavens)
