Kim Ui-jang to Hold Plenary Session on 23rd... "If No Agreement, Government Proposal or Amendments to Be Processed" (Comprehensive)

Final Ultimatum for Budget Negotiations Between Ruling and Opposition Parties
Third Deadline Set Following 15th and 19th
Possibility of Passing Amended Reduction Proposal When Referred to Plenary Session

Speaker of the National Assembly Jinpyo Kim. [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] Speaker of the National Assembly Kim Jin-pyo announced on the 21st, "The plenary session for the approval of next year's budget bill is scheduled to be held at 2 p.m. on the 23rd."

In a statement released that afternoon, Speaker Kim said, "If an agreement is reached among the negotiating parties on next year's budget bill, the agreed proposal will be processed; if no agreement is reached, either the government’s original bill or the Democratic Party’s revised bill submitted to the plenary session will be handled." Since the previously set deadlines for agreement on the 15th and 19th have passed and budget negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties continue to stall, this is interpreted as a 'final ultimatum.'

Earlier, on the 10th, Speaker Kim met with the floor leaders of both parties and demanded that an agreement on the budget bill and related subsidiary bills be reached by the 15th. Regarding the major issue of the corporate tax top rate, considering the government’s proposal to lower it by 3 percentage points from the current 25% to 22% and the Democratic Party’s opposition, he proposed a compromise of a 1 percentage point reduction. For other contentious issues such as the budgets for the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s Police Bureau and the Ministry of Justice’s Personnel Information Management Unit, he presented a compromise plan to cut the budget as requested by the Democratic Party but adopt a supplementary opinion allowing the agencies to operate temporarily with contingency funds. Speaker Kim held another meeting with the floor leaders on the 16th and urged agreement on the budget bill on the 19th, but no agreement was reached.

If both the government’s original budget bill and the Democratic Party’s revised bill are submitted to the plenary session simultaneously, it is highly likely that the revised bill will be passed according to the will of the Democratic Party, which holds a majority with 169 seats. The Democratic Party has prepared its own revised bill that reduces the government’s original proposal by a total of 1.7 to 2 trillion won by cutting the agreed reductions and the budget for the presidential office relocation.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.