On 22-23 June 2010, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya was in Brussels during his week- long tour to various capitals of Europe. In addition to his meeting with Team Thailand in Brussels, Minister Kasit met with Acting Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Belgium, Secretary-general of the Belgian Foreign Ministry, Belgian private sector, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Assistance and Crisis Response, European Commissioner for Trade, Member of European Parliament, expert from official of Vice President and High Representative of European Union, President and Vice President of International Crisis Group, President of International Federation for Human Rights. In addition, Minister Kasit also gave a lecture at European Policy Center (EPC) where a large crowd of audience paid keen interest to the lecture. The audience included representatives of diplomatic corps, NGOs, academics, media and general public.
During those meetings and lecture, Minister gave briefing on the latest political situation in Thailand. He reaffirmed Thailand’s determination towards reconciliation with concrete roadmap and setting up of independent committees to undertake the tasks as stipulated for the respective committees. He also projected possible timeline in moving forward conciliation process and reaffirmed Thailand’s determination on greater democratization while implementing Economic Stimulus Packages with the present 2nd Package focusing on development of Infrastructure, Education and Healthcare System. Minister Kasit also pointed out that despite recent political problem, the overall economic still moving ahead strongly while tourism sector which has been most affected would see improvement in the second half of this year.
With regard to prospects for future cooperation with the EU and its respective member states, Minister Kasit expressed interests in learning from the experience on anti-corruption, governance as well as promoting knowledge-base society. Thailand and ASEAN can also benefit from the EU’s vast experience on regional connectivity, especially the facilitation of movement of goods and people.
For further information, please contact the Press Division, Department of Information, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tel.02-6435170, Fax.02-6435169, E-mail: div0704@mfa.go.th