Reference: EU's misplaced sense of political humor, Bangkok Post, September 6, 2007

The article states that Thailand does not need the EU to supervise and legitimize its democracy because it is not a failed state and because it is more evolved politically than countries like Cambodia and Bangladesh that do accept EU election observers. This argument contains a flaw. The leverage that the EU enjoys over Cambodia and Bangladesh derives not from the political immaturity of these nations nor from their need for European expertise to govern their own countries but from their poverty. Both of these countries are dependent on foreign aid and this dependency plays into the hands of the Paris Club and other donor oligopolies. These donors enjoy a sense of omnipotence in the relationship because they are able to set pre-conditions to further aid disbursements. The so called "conditionality" of foreign aid gives the donors a great deal of leverage over poor countries and the opportunity to use this leverage to push a European agenda upon them. It was possibly in that momentum that the EU mistakenly doled out the same kind of treatment to Thailand possibly having forgotten that Thailand is not one of their clients.

Cha-am Jamal