Prime Minister urges Nat'l Assembly to pass budget-related bills

Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon speaks during a policy coordination meeting at the Government Complex in central Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap

By Park Ji-won

Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon urged the National Assembly to pass budget-related and bread-and-butter bills swiftly amid a political stalemate between parties over the passage of reform bills.

“I am making a desperate call for the National Assembly to swiftly pass the supplementary budget bills and bills on the economy and people's livelihoods,” Lee said during a regular policy coordination meeting at the Government Complex in central Seoul, Thursday.

Lee pointed out that, under constitutional law, the Assembly should have passed the budget bill and budget-related bill by Dec. 2. But the budget proposal was passed on Dec. 10 while 22 relevant bills remain “up in the air.”

“The government cannot wait any longer. In order to work properly from the beginning of 2020, the budget should be passed and its implementation plan should be mapped out by now.” He further warned that if this “abnormal situation” continues, the country's livelihood will be at stake.

His remarks came after President Moon Jae-in urged the National Assembly on Tuesday to pass budget-related bills by saying that delaying its passage is “unprecedented.”

Moon urged the cabinet to get prepared for the upcoming budget implementation thoroughly so that the country's major projects, such as job creation, can be carried out next January as planned.

The “unprecedented” situation has come about because the Assembly passed the budget proposal prior to the passage of its supplementary proposals. The National Assembly has been passing the supplementary bills first, as the law stipulates that the budget should be planned after the budget-related law has been regulated. In other words, the passed budget proposal cannot be implemented properly without the passage of supplementary bills.

However, the National Assembly passed the government's budget bill for the 2020 fiscal year and four related supplementary bills on Dec. 10, which is the last day of its regular session. The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) disagreed with the passage of the budget bill, boycotting the regular session. The Assembly ended up failing to pass the remaining 22 budget-related bills on the same day, mostly focused on tax-code revisions, which are prerequisite to the implementation of the budget.

The fate of the budget-related bills is up in the air as there are no planned extraordinary sessions amid the political deadlock after the parties failed to come up with an agreement over the passage of fast-tracked bills on electoral and prosecution reform.

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea and other minor opposition parties have been in negotiations to come up with an electoral reform bill but so far failed to fine-tune its details as it is a sensitive issue largely relating to the number of seats they could secure at the upcoming April general election. The LKP, meanwhile, is boycotting Assembly activities claiming that the other parties' moves to pass the fast-tracked bills come without the LKP's consent, contravening the democratic process.