The Evolution of EU Policies toward Thailand

Since the formation of ASEAN in1967 the EU has been trying to strengthen its relations in a wide range of areas with ASEAN, the only regional association beside the EU in Southeast Asia. This EU's relationship is described as the most unique among all the others for it is the only interregional organization that EU is currently dealing with even though it has not been integrated in the same level as the EU. However, due to the notion of the purpose of establishing ASEAN, which some academics describe as a threat-driven formation to prevent the further advancement of Communism in the region, cultural differences, and the concern of national sovereignty in the Southeast Asian nations considering the fact that most states in Southeast Asia are young and recently gained independence from their colonial powers, there are many difficulties emerging. Although there were many multilateral attempts between EU and ASEAN to further cooperation in many aspects, as shown in several ASEM conferences, to put the phase of the economic and social cooperation towards developing the region, there are not many tangible progresses seen from the cooperation between the two yet. This paper will discuss how the EU has adapted and evolved its policies in dealing with other state actors outside the continental Europe, in this context, Thailand one of the 5 founder nations of ASEAN as it failed to deal with ASEAN nations as a whole.

Since the 1950s to 1997many Southeast Asian nations had experienced the rapid socio-economic developments in the age of the economic miracle of Asian, as the EU oversaw the growing importance of the region it has been trying the set a firm footsteps to guarantee its interests in the future. However, as Southeast Asian nations experienced the drastic financial crisis triggered in July 1997 in Thailand, the confidence of the EU economic cooperation in the regions was undermined. In Thailand, the economic crisis halted the three decades of unprecedented economic growth and it was not until 2003 onward after Thailand announced that it has been fully recovered from the previous crisis and no longer need the financial assistance from donor countries. Since then the nature of the Euro-Thai relations has fundamentally changed from the traditional donor-recipient relationship, as it had allocated 18% or about 5.62 million Euros of the total amount of the 20 million Euros of its 1998 ASEM trust fund to help countries hit by the crisis, toward the partnership of the development as a facilitator of many areas of developments in the Southeast Asian region. In an early stage the crisis recovery, the EC's cooperation policies toward Thailand are mostly emphasized on supporting Thai government to tackle with the most urgent issues of the socio-economic developments. It has been currently promoting the further reciprocal economic cooperation by providing the technical assistance to help Thailand achieving its development goals. The financial assisting aids for physical infrastructures was no longer prioritized, but have shifted to emphasized on the technical assistance for social infrastructures, poverty alleviation, environment, and the human resource developments. This reflects the new circumstances of the more mature, mutual, wide ranging partnerships of the relationship between Thailand and EU, in which the EU commission has diversified its partner structure and cooperators with multi-cooperation partnership of governmental stakeholders, private NGOs, universities, and etc. In present, The EU has come up with the EU support projects and programs that are being implemented with the cooperation from wide range stakeholders not only in Thailand but the other ASEAN nations, which benefit Thailand as it has been used as the EU regional facilities in Southeast Asia such as, the bilateral cooperation of 3 joined venture projects in the developments of public health, natural resources, and the economic cooperation allocated 18 million Euro in total and ASEAN cooperation of 24 projects in the higher education, energy, IPR and standards, economic cooperation of 58.31 million Euros allocation in total. From 2002-2004, the National Indicative Program provide by the EU on the technical assistance to the on-going reform of the Thai public health service alone was 5 million Euro and the creation of the EC-Thailand Small Projects Facility (SPF), planned locally by the EC delegation in Bangkok to support trade and investment sectors took up another 5 million Euros of the allocation. Moreover, the NIP allocated 3.2 million Euros for the funding scholarship for Thai graduate students for higher education under the framework of EC's Erasmus Mundus program and supported the participation of the 6th research framework program of 26 Thai teams along with the 26 international research teams in environment, Nano technologies, food, health, etc.

The EU policies toward the further cooperation of Thailand is facilitated by the EC delegation to Thailand, which organized the regular meeting with the member states' development co-operation Counselors in order to deal with the Thai government effectively and assure the harmony and consistent approaches. Among all the EU member states, Germany, France, and Denmark are among the major contributors of the cooperation assistance in Thailand. Germany is the main contributor of the program emphasized o strengthening the competitiveness of agro-industries by improving the business and service sectors allocated 3.5 million Euros planned to be implemented yearly from 2007 onward. On the contrary the Franco-Thai cooperation development assistance policies concentrate on higher education and human resource developments in a wide range of areas. Lastly, Denmark's assistance policies focus on the natural resources management and sustainable development both in terms of energy and agricultural sector. The Coherent policies of the EU cooperation in Thailand in Thailand is based on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) established as a framework of the Euro-Thai cooperation for guaranteeing the coherence of all the coherent states actors involved in the programs. The PCA is still in the process of negotiation and will only be implemented and signed once a democratically elected government is in place in Thailand, so due to the current political turmoil in Thailand since the oust of PM Thaksin Sinawattra in 2006, which continues to pollute the political environment in Thailand the further Euro-Thai cooperation is still on halt. In present, the particular attentions of the EU strategy implementation have been given to the other EU policies areas mainly investment, trade, employment, education, culture, social policies, and Justice and Home affair in order to ensure the coherent relationship of EU and Thailand. I term of the economic cooperation, the development in trade policies as stated in this strategy paper will be carefully monitoring in coherent of trade matters concerning WTO negotiations, the processes of signing the treaty particularly EU-ASEAN FTA or EU-Thai FTA are still under the investigation process by the 'Vision Group'. For EU cooperation in employment and social policies, the EU has been given a lot of importance on strengthening the social aspects of globalization and promoting the decent work as a global objective via the regional EC cooperation in ASEM meeting rounds. It has also been seeking for the joined venture EU-Thai cooperation of relating policies dialogue for facilitating the operation in Thailand and its neighbors as well. Furthermore, in terms of the public health and safety, the EU cooperation policies have been reinforced both on the bilateral level with Thailand and regional level in the wider ASEAN community, emphasizing on the efforts to prevent and study the pathogenic avian influenza and to mitigate trade friction on sanitary and phyto-sanitary issues arising between the EU and Thailand. However, the main prioritization of the EU cooperation policies in Thailand and the wider ASEAN is knowledge sharing and capacity building, particularly on the accurate and advanced know how methods information for the producers as well as supporting the regional integration by harmonizing the technical standards and regulations in the region.

The EU-Thai cooperation in the focal areas mentioned will be improved further by negotiating a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with the commission in the near future in a wide range of mutual interests as Thailand and EC has deepening the relationship in various areas of cooperation being implemented under the framework of the outline of the EC's regional strategic policies toward Thailand and its neighbors as well. In addition, EU has been trying to put the phase to Thailand as it has emerged as the regional leader and as a donor in the region itself, as seen in Thailand's role in cooperating with its less developed neighbors. The EC is keen to facilitate the knowledge sharing and the Thailand's own experience of development via the trilateral cooperation activities in order to develop the neighboring countries of Thailand notably Burma, Cambodia, Laos. The EC also looking for encouraging Thailand to increase its effectiveness of implementing its foreign aids to its neighbor in the line with the provisions of the declaration of Paris as well. Thailand and EC cooperation facility is depending on the increase flexibility to leverage the visible interventions as need and to respond to the dynamics and competitive challenges and opportunities arising from the relationship between the two. Under the framework of the Thailand-EC cooperation PCA facility, it is obvious that the major prioritization will continue to be placed on the economic cooperation in a wide range of economic sectors. These mutual interests reflect the growing importance of the economic relationship between the EC and Thailand. The emphasis will be given on supporting the Thai economic reform and promoting international competiveness, while handling with the full account of social aspects of globalization. The further prioritization in trade and economic cooperation will be subjected to the provision of the customs cooperation and the outline of the Doha Ministerial Decoration as same as the relevant issue for potential EU ASEAN FTA or EU-Thai FTA as the EU assist the Thailand to participate in regional integration in ASEAN. Furthermore, the EU will help Thai administration and companies to adapt to developments in EU legislation as well as to meet the standard and markets requirement of the EU in many areas such as food, industrial standards, consumer protection, customs cooperation, air and maritime transport, labeling, etc. This will put the phase of the bilateral trade relationship between Thailand and the EU. Finally, the EU bilateral cooperation with Thailand will focus on the activities of fostering a constructive dialogue in the inter related areas of the main focal objectives such as governance, human rights, environment, gender issues, and mine actions to constantly support Thai-EC cooperation facility.

In the context of the cooperation with Thailand, the EU has set the thematic approaches as a directive of the bilateral cooperation and interventions in five main areas. First, Democracy and Human rights, the EU trying to promote democracy and human rights to create the democratic political and social culture to ensure the presence of democracy in Thailand. For example: if the situation in the Southern part of Thailand the EU still continues could provide technical assistance to NGOs and other bodies of involvement in monitoring the human right violations in Thailand as well. The second directive approach is Human and Social development, providing the programs and studies of health, populations, culture, training gender equality, social cohesion, and the promotion of the related international agendas. Thirdly, the Migration and the Asylum, the EU has been trying to cooperate with Thailand to combat human trafficking and dealing with the large groups of displaced people in Thailand, particularly near the border of Burma. The planned bilateral PCA also foresees the Euro-Thai cooperation on the agreed dialogue on the issue of migration. The fourth thematic approach is on the Environment and sustainable Management of natural Resources Including Energy and lastly, Non States Actor Development thematic approach in which the EU will provide assistance to NGOs and the other civil society, including social actors and the other strategic sectors. The EU thematic activity approaches toward Thailand are pursued the commission under the strategic paper of the policy dialogue with Thailand. All the focal activities are meant to be carried out by the civil society actors and other social actors as well, and the financial mechanism of these cooperation projects will be provided under the Multi annual indicative program (MIP) the main state contributors are Germany, France, and Denmark as mentioned earlier.

In conclusion, the EU policies toward Thailand has fundamentally transformed from the relationship of the donor and aids recipient to the more mutual interests based relationship especially in terms of trade and economic cooperation. As it has failed to cooperate with ASEAN as a whole considering the many different states' interests in the region, the EU has been trying to negotiate on the bilateral basis with several countries in ASEAN. Undoubtedly, Thailand is one of the potential countries in this region that EU has currently trying to cooperate and establish mutual interests an its Thailand's based facility that would set a firm step of its influences in the region considering the growing importance of Southeast Asia since the recovery from the financial crisis , while it has also been trying to promote the further ASEAN integration in order to find the common interests and deal with the region more effectively as it holds the key of interests to the region. As witnessed in many of its approaches in Thailand in terms of the development program cooperation and in Aceh the first ESDP military and civilian operation in Indonesia, which is the first EU military operation in Asia, it is assured that EU is still holding on the concept of Neorealism in dealing and operating with other states actors by the use of 'soft power', promoting its idea of democracy, liberalism, functional market, human right through the specific and defined areas of cooperation and operations.

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