H. E. Mr. Pavel Pitel Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Thailand

Expat Life met H. E. Mr. Pavel Pitel the Czech Republic Ambassador to Thailand at their discreet Embassy in Ruamrudee. 

Pavel is a tall, willowy fit man in his forties, immaculately turned out and was very pleasant to talk to. I queried his surname in my ignorance, but he assured me that his forefathers were Czech. The first name Pavel is the equivalent to Paul in the Czech or Slavic languages, and the name Pitel means someone who drinks. He jokingly said that he didn’t know whether someway back in the past his forefathers were linked with drinking… but were obviously connected with the drinks business.

May I ask where you came from, to get here?

My last posting was in Prague in the Czech Republic where I stayed the last 4 years as Director of the Consular Department. The department that takes care of citizens abroad, where they may need assistance after accidents or hospitalisation, organise election voting abroad or compiling the necessary paperwork for citizenship, marriage and birth certificates and all the bureaucracy connected with expats living abroad.

Are you a career diplomat?

Yes I am. I joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after I graduated from university in 1998 and since then I have sublimated from the lowest level of the ranks to my first posting to Ambassador to Thailand for the Czech Republic today.

Were you born in Prague?

No I was born in the West of the country in the region known as Karlovy Vary near a well known spa city called Kaarlsbaad on the Western border very close to Germany. 

Did you go to university in Prague?

Yes I graduated from high school in Karlovy Vary and went to the capital to continue my studies at the University of Economics in Prague, Faculty of International Trade and International Relations where I graduated.

So you knew where you were going at the time?

I did not. At that I was very interested in all sorts of the digital business, programming and coding. I did not know until the last moment what my profession would be and saw an advertisement for a vacancy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and I thought to myself, that would be a nice opportunity to travel the world and represent my country so I applied and was successful and here we are today.

Is this your first Ambassador posting?

Yes but in my career this is my fourth posting. I started in India at my first posting. Then I was posted in Sydney in Australia and my last post abroad before Prague was in Washington DC in the US. 

You have had some impressive postings.

Yes very nice I have been lucky. Pleasant experiences and cities, countries. I have seen the world from different angles, perspectives. From down under and the US superpower and a little bit of India, which at that time was underprivileged, but things are very different there now. With all it’s colonial history it was a very interesting experience.

How long have you been in Thailand now?

I arrived six months ago on the 1st of August 2022 so I am still in my first year. The usual term is for 4 years but it can depend on the educational circumstances of our children. It can be shorter or longer by one year either way. We will see. 

You mention children, you have children with you here? Which school do they attend?

Yes we have two children here with us, a daughter 17 and a boy 14. We opted for St. Andrews 71 at Ekkamai as the children of my predecessors attended the same school and were very pleased and the closeness of our residence in Thong Lor as we were told that the traffic in Bangkok is a determining factor. We are happy and the kids like it too. There are so many good international schools here with NIST, Bangkok Patana, ISB – I don’t know whether there is an official ranking but we are very lucky.

We are very lucky in Thailand and especially in Bangkok there are some first class schools here. But St. Andrews 71 and Paul Schofield has built a strong team there.

Yes we are pleased and it is near to our residence. We rent a small house. We are not as blessed as many of my friends and colleagues from other Embassies that have very nice premises where they can perform their duties. In our case it was influenced very much especially here in Thailand as for a long time there were no diplomatic relations between the former Czechoslovakia and Thailand. Because Thailand was on the side of USA in the Cold War and Czechoslovakia were on the other side behind the Iron Curtain. So we only started our official diplomatic relations only in 1974. The embassy was opened even later on and then obviously the division of Czechoslovakia between the Czech Republic and Slovakia took place so we did not have time to find a very nice place to stay here in Bangkok. 

Even when diplomatic relations started it did not seem that important, our colleagues a few decades ago didn’t foresee Thailand’s importance but the opposite is true at the moment. As a result we are not enjoying decisions made in the past as the embassy that we are not in is not sufficient for the work that we are doing and would like to do in the future. It is a limitation to what we want to do. This building was purchased in 1994 after the division of Czechoslovakia and since then the number of staff is slowly growing. I am now the only person sitting alone in the building. 

Could you tell me, for the sake of our readers, about the division and what happened, why?

There are many books that describe the situation, the process I think that the main issue and should be an inspiration for the world is that it happened peacefully – The Velvet Revolution. From the very beginning in 1918 when Czechoslovakia was born out of the ashes of the Austrian/Hungarian empire it was a combination of two ethnicities Slovak’s and Czech’s living together with similar languages, we could understand each other. It worked for a long time. Especially after all the changes in the Communist Block the issue of self-determination and self-governance of these two ethnical groups or nations came to play and slowly we could see that the Federation was not the solution anymore so our politicians decided to split up in a peaceful way. Thankfully it happened this way. We should note that it was at the same period of time when all the atrocities happened in Yugoslavia, where the division of that same case scenario happened in a very violent way.

What is the population and the land mass of the Czech Republic?

The Czech Republic is a mid size, smaller country with 10 million plus people. Slovakia is perhaps 50% smaller. Before the division the combined total was 15 million. 

Does the land mass equate to the population?

I would say roughly yes 2/3 of the former land is now Czech Republic and the other third is Slovakia roughly. 

Prague is a wonderful city. 

There are so many interesting cities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. They are very much connected to the history of Central Europe definitely influenced by German and Austria/Hungarian influences. We have been and still are a crossroads between the West and the East is it is a nice combination that is manifested in our culture and our architecture as well. 

So you are here as Ambassador to the Czech Republic to Thailand. It is a ‘dream’ posting at an interesting time for the world. Many people say that the world is moving East and that Europe has had it’s time. It certainly has it’s difficulties at the moment. Our economies are all struggling whilst the growth seems to be coming from Asia. You are in the centre of it in Thailand, the recognised centre of ASEAN. 

The European nations have known for a long time that the growth would be shifting to Asia. Our efforts in the past were perhaps concentrated on the bigger countries like China and India where we thought the destinations that would be best for our exports but nowadays we are seeing that China has not fulfilled it’s potential as was thought in the past and now all European countries are shifting their interest to the smaller nations in SE Asia. 

The Czech Republic (CR) and the European Union (EU) are developing their Indo-Pacific strategies and starting to concentrate their attentions from Australia to the Eastern coasts of Africa and all between. We want to be present here, not only to gain from this, but to stay in close relations and in partnership with those nations that share the same view as the international order. Respect international values and law like Thailand and nations that are open to bilateral trade especially economic and scientific exchange. It is important for us to keep up with the fast moving pace of international relations. 

Do you responsibilities just lie with Thailand? 

Thailand and Laos. The latter is very much under the influence of China at the moment and it is therefore difficult for a small country like us to succeed in competition with the economic power and wealth of China. Thailand and other countries are perhaps easier for us to succeed in our negotiations with at this moment. 

Have you and your family travelled to Thailand yet?   

I travelled before when I was posted to India 20 years ago and visited many times. I knew where I was coming even though Thailand has made a huge leap forward since those days. There are so many lovely places. We visited many of the lovely islands before Christmas and made road trips to Chiang Mai and Koh Chang as well. 

Have you visited Laos yet? 

Not yet, I am still waiting to present my credentials which hopefully will happen sometime early this year. 

Any particular place that you wish to visit, the islands are steeped in natural beauty, which ones have you visited already? 

Koh Chang, Koh Samet, earlier Ko Samui and Kao Tao. All of these places are so beautiful but I will not be able to visit all of it before the end of my term here. I love Asia, the Asian mentality and I feel very welcome here so it was very easy progress of acclimatisation here. 

Your children – 17 and 14, where will they go from here? 

Our daughter is now looking to university and most probably it will be somewhere in Europe so we will have to take the decision very soon. Whilst our son will continue with his high school studies in Thailand. 

When did you decide the route of diplomacy? 

It was fate not a predestined plan. At university when I studied I made several trips abroad. A group of friends and I decided to travel to travel to India in 1996 over two months by land. We hopped on a bus in Prague to Istanbul, Turkey. On to Tehran in Iran to Quetta in Pakistan, took the train to Lahore and then on to India. It was a beautiful trip and lifetime experience which somehow got me interested in all those nations and countries that I did not know at that time. So when I saw that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were looking for staff I thought it would be a good opportunity to travel round the world. Stay in different countries for several years, learning about different cultures. Very sad to see what is happening in Iran at the moment – such lovely people. 

Are their any particular issues that you are looking to tackle whilst you are here? 

Diplomatic relations between Thailand and the Czech Republic are very young. We celebrate our 50th anniversary next year. We saw the signing last month of a partnership relationship between the EU and Thailand lets hope that this will be a new era between them and is this framework we would like to evolve our bilateral relationship as well with a major concentration on the economic, scientific and people to people with Thailand as well. My goals for my time here is to bring more energy into the relationship, more delegations from the CR more people and official visits from Thailand to the CR to start some new chapters in our bilateral relationship. 

We have been cooperating for a long time in industries with high value added, like Defence and Security Industries as the CR is a very industrial country known for many industrial products like aircraft, even aircraft for military training like the aircraft the L30 trainer. We are successful in the automotive industry with Skoda which are very popular in the UK, India as part of VAG. CR has proved successful in medical devices. The Czech company Linnet has grown from zero to with hospital beds as Thailand’s medical industry is well advanced. Delivering large numbers of beds to key hospitals like Chulalongkorn and Sirirat they bring with them the whole industry of top notch industrial devices. I would like to develop there markets with the limitation that we can only do what our size allows us. We will never play the role the the US or France plays but still we have some industries, products that can be delivered here. 

The other thing that I would like to mention is the scientific cooperation which we did as our presidency of the European Council last year was run an event that was in the space and the usage of EU space programmes for Thailand. This is because the EU space agency is based in Prague. There are a cluster of companies in and around the area which concentrate on the analysis of the data collected. Satellite’s circling our globe and Thailand was very much interested in becoming involved in these projects. 

Do you have educational exchange between the two countries programmes? 

I believe that there are 20 something agreements between Czech and Thai universities but we do not have the same opportunity as the US or UK and other countries. Technical, scientific and medical education. Some universities offer English courses in those areas. With a degree from the ……. or the …. University in Brno. They can then operate in the EU or abroad. The price of university education is definitely lower than it is in the Western countries of Europe. 

Prague and Brno are the only two major cities I know in the CR. What are the populations of them and the next two or three? 

The concentration of the population are but we have other cities like Prague (1,275,406), Brno (379,466), Ostrava (279,791), Pizen (168,733), Liberec (102,951). There are so many smaller cities and areas that are definitely worth visiting as well. 

How big is the CR community in Thailand? 

It is relatively small. Thailand was not a destination for major migration unlike the US, Canada and Australia where historically most of our population was heading to. Maybe in the lower hundreds. Even influenced during Covid-19 when some repatriated because it was easier. As for the tourist traveller maybe 50,000 and growing coming to Thailand so we will see those numbers. We would like to grow levels of tourism both ways. What we saw just before Covid was not sustainable. The same in the streets of Prague which is important to exchange culture. 

When I think of Prague the word ‘Bohemian’ comes in to my mind? 

The Kingdom of Bohemia, the Margraviate of Moravia, and Duchy of Silesia comprise the historical Bohemian Lands, approximately the 21st century’s Czech Republic, which came under the rule of the Habsburg crown in 1526. We do not use that word so much in our own language. 

Do you have a National Day? 

The most important day for us is the 28th October which is the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918. Right after the First World War when the Austrian/Hungarian empire was bought down. We also celebrate the The Velvet Revolution which bought the end of Communist regime which is the 17th November 1989. The 1st of January 1993 when Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia and Czechia. We haven’t been able to celebrate the last couple of years because of Covid. This year we celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the peaceful split of the two countries in the second half of the year. 

May I ask how old you are? 

I am as old as the diplomatic relations between our two countries. I was born in 1974 I am 48 at the moment. 

We briefly discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ambassador mentioned that the aggression which he said brings back remembers when the CR was invaded by Russia in 1968. Why it is an emotional issue as his parents had witnessed Russian tanks on the streets of their beautiful country crashing the dream for a better future. 

It was crushed in a way that CR stayed back behind the Iron Curtain in a Communist regime before they regained their independence. Their freedom in 1989 and since then we value this freedom very much and it is very sad that someone powerful in Russia does not like the Ukrainian people taking their now future in their hands. Really sad… 

The connotations and that has influenced our country as well seeing all the prices of natural gas, gasoline and crude oil going up and putting budgetary implications for our country as well so hopefully we will all survive this desperate situation. But we are not alone all of our friends in the European Union and NATO so it is much easier than fighting it alone. 

Valuing the freedom we are trying to help and currently the CR is home to 450,000 refugees from the Ukraine. Poland has many more about 1 million displaced refugees. However as the CR only has a population of 10 million for them to suddenly have 450,000 extra mouths to feed and house is a great challenge. Mostly they are women with children as the men have stayed behind to fight the aggression from Russia.   

Thank you for your time Pavel…