Time flies; this is already my 3rd Austrian National Day as Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to the Kingdom of Thailand. Let me briefly mention once again the historical background of this special day, which goes back to 26 October 1955, i.e. to the decision of Austria’s Parliament on our “permanent neutrality”. Our goal in Austrian diplomacy is to further strengthen the relations between our countries and to promote exchange in all areas. The auspicious occasion of the Austrian National Day offers the perfect setting to celebrate and implement this goal.
We live in politically turbulent times; war has returned to Europe and to other regions. Despite our neutrality from 1955, we have been demonstrating solidarity with our European partners and friends every day in our political approaches in the many crisis we unfortunately see in the world, in particular, in Ukraine and in the Middle East, because Austria is militarily neutral, but Austria is not – and never was - politically neutral, as for example in the event of a massive breach of the UN Charter by an unprovoked aggression of a nuclear armed state against a sovereign neighbour.
The Republic of Austria has always supported effective multilateralism and the respect for the rule of law. These have been core values of our foreign policy for decades. This fact is symbolized in our role as host of the third Headquarters of the United Nations in Vienna, after New York and Geneva. We are very proud of our close cooperation with Thailand not only bilaterally, but also in many multilateral fora in the context of the United Nations.
The year 2024 is a special one in the bilateral relations between Austria and Thailand as we celebrate a double anniversary: 155 Years of formal relations between Austria and Thailand and 70 Years of resident missions (embassies) in our capitals, Bangkok and in Vienna.
Exactly 155 years ago, in 1869, two Austrian warships, the “Donau” and the “Erzherzog Friedrich”, visited Siam for the first time in a mission to establish formal relations between our countries, at this time Austria-Hungary and Siam; a treaty on friendship, trade and navigation was concluded and formal relations were established. And exactly 70 years ago, in 1954, resident diplomatic missions were established in Vienna and Bangkok after the Second World War.
These two anniversaries we want to celebrate with the Austrian National Day 2024, too. We’ve already had a couple of events, for example, a very intense “Austrian Lifestyle Week” in March under the umbrella of these double anniversaries, and we have more events to come, including a photo exhibition on the visit in Bangkok in 1869 with photographs taken by the Austrian photographic pioneer Wilhelm Burger.
Our bilateral relations continue to be excellent after 155 years, politically, economically, culturally and also in the field of tourism, which is an important source of revenue for both our countries. Thailand and Austria are well-known for their rich cultures which constitute cornerstones of our soft power assets such as our cuisine, art and music. And these elements are today subsumed under the vogue expression of “soft power diplomacy”. We try to do our best to showcase these soft power skills in this year’s celebrations, as well.
