Far-right Sweden Democrats, Russian and Belarus ambassadors not welcome at Nobel banquet

The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, which became the country’s second biggest party in last month’s election, are not welcome at the Nobel banquet, the Nobel Foundation said

This year’s laureates, which includes former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and French novelist Annie Ernaux, will be celebrated along with a host of other dignitaries at a lavish banquet in Stockholm on Dec. 10.

The Nobel Foundation typically extends an invitation to its storied prize ceremony to ambassadors stationed in Sweden each year, but this year made the decision to exclude the Russian and Belarusian ambassadors, according to a statement issued by the foundation yesterday.

“In view of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Foundation has chosen not to invite the ambassadors of Russia and Belarus to the Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm,” the statement reads.

The foundation jointly awarded this year’s peace prize to the Centre for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian human rights organisation, in conjunction with Memorial, a Russian human rights group outlawed by the Kremlin, and the veteran Belarussian activist Ales Bialiatski, who is being held in prison without trial in his native country.

Swedish party leaders are traditionally always invited to the banquet, which will also celebrate the winners of the past two years when the banquet has been canceled due to COVID, but the Nobel Foundation has repeatedly snubbed the controversial Sweden Democrats and will do so again this year.

“The Nobel Prize is based on respect for science, culture, humanism and internationalism,” the Nobel Foundation said in a statement on its website.

“This respect is also the basis for the achievements that are celebrated and highlighted when Nobel Prize laureates and guests from all over the world are invited to the Nobel Prize award ceremony and banquet on 10 December,” it said.

A white paper commissioned by the Sweden Democrats showed 18 out of the party’s 22 founding members in 1988 came from white supremacist group Keep Sweden Swedish. About ten of them had links to fascist or Nazi organisations, it said.

The Sweden Democrat’s could not be immediately reached for comment.

The party got 20.5% of the votes in the September election and are support party and close allies to the centre-right government led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

The new government’s cooperation with the Sweden Democrats has raised eyebrows within the European Union and junior government coalition member the Liberals have been threatened with expulsion from the European Parliament’s liberal group Renew Europe.