Korea-EU FTA to be put to assembly for the third time

The Trade Ministry is to again revise the Korean-language version of the Korea-EU free trade agreement, and resubmit the bill for ratification to the National Assembly for the third time.

“The government was recently informed that several errors were found while reviewing the Korea-EU FTA’s Korean translation,” Rep. Nam Kyung-pil, National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee chairman, said.

“The government plans to resubmit the bill after decisions are made at the Cabinet meeting on the fifth of next month.”

Nam also said that the committee will accept a retraction of the bill if the government chooses to request a retraction.

The Korean version of the trade agreement with the EU was found to be riddled with errors, which the Trade Ministry had overlooked.

In late February and early March, trade law specialist Song Gi-ho singled out several mistakes in the Korean version of the agreement, leading to the ministry retracting and resubmitting the bill to the National Assembly twice.

The latest mistakes, 160 in total, were spotted by a civic group comprised of lawyers.

On March 22, Lawyers for Democratic Society informed the Trade Ministry of mistakes that included the English word “or” translated into Korean as “and,” and leaving out the word “any” in the Korean version.

In addition, the phrase “as it existed immediately before the amendment,” included in clauses prohibiting retroactive changes being made to trade conditions, was left out in the Korean version.

On Feb. 25, the ministry announced that mistakes regarding the proportion of imported raw materials used in wax and toy products to be eligible for tax exemption will be changed, after errors were singled out by trade law specialist Song Gi-ho.

The changes led to the ministry retracting the bill submitted to the National Assembly and resubmitting the corrected version.

By Choi He-suk  (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)