hankyoreh

Trade and Unification Committee

The Grand National Party independently held a meeting of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee and submitted a ratification agreement bill Thursday for the South Korea-United States free trade agreement. As a result, the FTA concluded and signed by the governments of South Korea and the United States on June 30, 2007, will enter the actual ratification procedure after one year and five months. But a considerable amount of trouble is expected before the ratification is settled in the plenary session, as the Democratic Party is expressing stubborn opposition, including the occupation of the assembly speaker’s office in protest.

Park Jin, a GNP lawmaker and head of the parliamentary trade committee, held a plenary session at 2:00 p.m. Thursday, presenting the agreement bill for FTA ratification and passing it on to the legislation and judiciary committee. As he started the meeting, Park said, “Because it is difficult to hold a regular session of the standing committee, as committee chair I have decided to present the scheduled matter at the scheduled time.” He then immediately presented the ratification agreement bill, it was reported.

After the GNP independently presented the FTA ratification bill Thursday to the Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee, voices of concern erupted within the GNP as well. A member of the trade committee said, “It’s embarrassing and complicated. I could feel the thirst for blood within the standing committee.”

Another prominent trade committee member expressed shame, saying, “I announced that I was going to leave the session before the presentation of the ratification bill, but my path was blocked. I couldn’t open to door to get out.” This means it was not so pressing a matter, but the ratification bill had to be presented with Assembly guards mobilized at trade committee chair Park Jin's direction and the doors to the meeting room were locked shut.

The GNP is still insisting that the best decision is to maintain a favorable agreement through early ratification and forestall demands by the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama for additional negotiations on issues such as automobiles. “If we ratify the FTA first, we can pressure the United States, but if we do it later, we will be the ones pressured,” GNP spokesman Yoon Sang-hyun explained Thursday. The ratification bill was presented to maintain beneficial content in the agreement, Yoon added.

But the political determination of core figures in the GNP, the government at Cheong Wa Dae to bring an end within this year to the social and political controversy surrounding the FTA figured heavily in GNP leaders’ decision to present a ratification bill that had not even been agreed to completely by GNP members within the trade committee.

Immediately after the presentation of the ratification bill, GNP floor leader Hong Joon-pyo said, “I, too, know about the counterarguments within the party. But we have already paid too many costs socially with repeated social and political conflicts over the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement for the last year and a half.” The problem cannot be dragged into the next year, Hong stated.

Hong also said, “If the labor world brings up the free trade agreement at the ‘spring strife’ next March and lines of social confrontation are formed, the Lee Myung-bak administration will not be able to do anything. Its entire political schedule for next year will end up being blocked.”

But in spite of these intentions among the ruling party, there are several stumbling blocks in the way of ratifying the agreement by the end of the year. The GNP succeeded in presenting the ratification bill Thursday through “secret operations” in which the trade committee chair exercised the right to maintain order and Assembly members occupied the meeting room early in the morning. But the ratification bill will only take legal effect after passing through decisions by the legislation and judiciary committee and the standing committee, and a vote in the plenary session.

As the Democratic Party has determined to put all its efforts into blocking discussion in the legislation committee, voting in the standing committee and presentation at the plenary session, physical clashes are inevitable.

Another political burden for the GNP comes from the Liberty Forward Party, which came out against passing of the ratification bill and is demanding an apology for, and nullification of, its presentation. “They want to announce the end of parliamentary democracy,” said a Liberty Forward Party representative.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]