hankyoreh

March 7. (Photo by Kim Gyoung-ho)

By Lee Se-young　

Policy institutes for four of the opposition parties made plans to develop concerted measures by progressive and reformist forces on the South Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). The Democratic Party’s Institute for Democracy and Policies, the Democratic Labor Party’s New Community Institute, the New Progressive Party’s Imagination Institute, the People’s Participation Party’s Participatory Policy Institute, and the Hankyoreh Economic Research Institute held the first in a series of policy debates among four opposition parties’ think tanks Monday in the large conference room of the National Assembly Library. The topic of the event was “The Choice of Progressive and Reformist Forces Regarding the KORUS FTA Issue.”

Presenter Jeong Tae-in, director of the Corea Institute for New Society, said that an increase in privatization and deregulation with the FTA’s ratification would “continuously and irreversibly diminish the possibility of a welfare state.”

“A political party that aspires toward a welfare state must fundamentally reexamine the KORUS FTA and either renegotiate it from square one or abandon it outright,” Jeong added.

The representatives of the four opposition parties and civil society who appeared in the debate Monday agreed on the need to refuse ratification of the renegotiated KORUS FTA agreed upon by the Lee Myung-bak administration, but differed in their views on the original FTA signed during the Roh Moo-hyun administration and the necessary course for future trade policy.

“Given the changes in the situation since the financial crisis, in particular the securing of room to maneuver with policy for crisis management and the possibility of conflict with the welfare state, it seems like a consensus at least on blocking ratification of the KORUS FTA would be possible,” Jeong said.

Following the discovery of discrepancies between the Korean and English texts of the South Korea-European Union Free Trade Agreement (KOREU FTA), the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee made plans Monday to review the ratification motion once again in its legislation review subcommittee after the government corrects the errors. Accordingly, modifications have become inevitable for the Lee Myung-bak government’s schedule for the motion, which they had hoped to pass through the committee Wednesday for introduction at the National Assembly’s plenary session.

“We have no way of knowing how many translation errors will be found in the future, nor can we place any more trust in the Foreign Ministry’s FTA task force,” said main opposition Democratic Party (DP) Lawmaker Kim Dong-cheol, adding that the DP has “demanded that they once again commission an outside translation of the KOREU FTA.”

The party also urged revisions to the Korean text of the agreement currently with the European Union through discussions with the EU.

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