HAMBURG, Germany – German media who took a keen interest in Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn during his stay at a Bavarian mansion, Villa Stolberg in Tutzing, have reported that he may not return.
Since joining in 2016 following the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the king has spent practically all of his time as a resident of the large south-east German state.
King Vajiralongkorn returned to Thailand on a longer-than-normal visit to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the death of his widely revered father on October 13th. However, he regularly encountered student-led street protests calling for a new government, constitutional amendments, and reform of the monarchy.
As Germany entered another round of COVID-19 lockdown, there were reports that the king would postpone his return to Germany until the end of December, but there was no official comment on the matter.
The palace has since launched an unprecedented public relations campaign to make the king appear less distant from his subjects. He has walked through the royalist crowd and even posed for selfies with followers.
Holger Sabinsky-Wolf, journalist for the local daily newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine, closely followed King Vajiralongkorn. He recently reported that diplomatic sources told him that they did not expect the king to return to Germany.
The sources saw a significant development on October 12th when a Royal Thai Air Force Airbus 345 flew from Munich to Bangkok with Prince Dipangkorn Rajismoti, the king’s 15-year-old son. The prince is the fifth son of the king by his third wife and was enrolled in a school in Geretsried, Bavaria, that met his educational needs. The prince stayed in Bangkok.
The Berliner Morgenpost, another daily newspaper, wrote a story on December 9th with the headline: “The King of Thailand has left Bavaria – will he ever be back?” It quoted officials who said the king hadn’t been away from Bavaria that long before. The article reported that local jewelers and gourmet grocery stores regretted its absence as “twenty accompanying businesswomen” had also departed and the substantial revenues they generated had dried up.
The district office in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district, where the king and his entourage stayed in a luxury hotel during Germany’s first COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year, is said to have asked the German Foreign Ministry in mid-November whether and how the king would return to the local ones Authorities should take care of matters in this case. According to the Berliner Morgenpost, there was no answer.
King Vajiralongkorn has received significant negative attention in Germany for maintaining an overt harem in the 21st century. He reportedly violated COVID-19 regulations, possible inheritance tax evasion and touch-and-go maneuvers in one of his private planes at a small Hamburg airport.
Thousands of young demonstrators came to the German embassy in Bangkok on October 26th and personally sent a letter to the German ambassador Georg Schmidt requesting an investigation into the life of the king in Bavaria. Among other things, they wanted to know whether the king had conducted Thai state affairs on German soil that would violate German law, and whether he was responsible for inheritance tax in Germany.
The affair sparked a lively debate among German politicians, mainly among the Greens and the Left. When answering questions in the Bundestag, in the Bundestag, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that the authorities would “permanently review what is happening and act immediately if things are discovered that we consider illegal.”
Sevim Dagdelen from the Left Party is one of the strongest critics of King Vajiralongkorn in the Bundestag. She told Nikkei Asia last month that the German government should stop accepting the Thai head of state.
Dagdelen represents her party in the Bundestag Committee on Foreign Affairs and in this capacity called on parliamentary researchers to investigate the legal implications of an unprecedented situation: a head of state who, by personal choice, is practically permanently residing in another country. A report was completed on November 18 and confirmed that King Vajiralongkorn lived in Germany on a private visa – not a visa for state guests. That puts things in a legal gray area.
The researchers concluded that the measures suggested by Maas, including surveillance and administrative penalties, would violate international law. The head of state embodies the dignity of a country and therefore enjoys diplomatic immunity – even when traveling on a private visa.
With regard to the ban on conducting Thai state affairs on German soil, the researchers came to the conclusion that the German government could bind the issuing of the king’s visa to an express obligation to appoint a regent in Thailand to replace him there acts when he is absent Germany.
This solution is unlikely to appeal to King Vajiralongkorn, who changed the regency divisions in the constitution after he joined. The amendments were branded highly controversial by an accommodating military-appointed legislative assembly after Thailand’s 20th Constitution was passed in a national referendum in 2016. The revised constitution received the necessary royal approval only in 2017 – the signature of the king. The changes made appointing a regent abroad an option for the king – and no longer a constitutional requirement.
However, the legislators in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union feel more comfortable with the longstanding hands-off approach.
“I don’t understand why issuing a visa for the Thai king should be linked to the internal affairs of Thailand, and I think the State Department is on its knees,” said Mark Hauptmann, a lawmaker for the ruling Christian Democratic Union as ” Asian hand, “Nikkei said last month.
“The State Department should hold back on this issue,” said Hauptmann.
Government spokesmen in Bangkok had not responded to Nikkei at the time of this writing.