Despite some progress, parties still split on FTA

Opposition rejects proposal for special parliamentary address by Lee


Political parties made some progress Monday in talks over the proposed free trade agreement with the U.S., but key differences remained.

Two committees of the National Assembly began the handling of all 14 bills that need to be approved for the FTA to take effect. The bills would revise local rules to abolish tariffs and import barriers between the two countries.

Members of the National Assembly’s foreign affairs and trade committee, where the ratification motion is pending, held the “final” debate in the afternoon, after three rounds of discussion last week, but failed to hammer out their differences.

Rep. Nam Kyung-pil of the ruling Grand National Party, who chairs the committee, said the GNP members may push to pass the bill should no breakthrough be made in coming days.

“Once all the debates are done, I think we should proceed to handle the ratification bill,” he said in a radio interview.

After Wednesday’s debate, some leftist lawmakers vowed again to block with all means any move by the GNP to unilaterally pass the bill.

Last week, GNP members had tried to send the motion for a floor vote, but were blocked by opposition lawmakers who physically occupied the committee room.

The conservative party and the government have been accelerating efforts to get the ratification bill passed by the end of the month, after the U.S. Congress endorsed its side of the deal in an unusually swift process earlier this month.

The trade pact was first signed in 2007 and then modified last year at the request of the United States.

The main opposition Democratic Party, which views the revised deal as being favorable to the United States, claims that some supplementary measures should be taken beforehand in order to protect local industries expected to be affected.

DP leaders turned down a proposal from National Assembly Speaker Park Hee-tae to invite President Lee Myung-bak to speak at the parliament in a bid to help solve the impasse, saying the speech would be nothing but another pressure for them to give in.

“We’re not opposing the FTA itself. We’re demanding some measures must be taken beforehand,” said Rep. Kim Jin-pyo, the DP floor leader.

The DP and smaller opposition groups demand, among other things, the Investor-State Dispute Settlement, or the ISD, clause be dropped from the agreement, and more protection measures for local firms and farmers.

They claim the ISD clause has the potential of causing legal disputes with U.S. investors who want the Korean government to scrap its protection policies for small firms and retailers.

Despite the remaining differences, however, the foreign affairs and trade committee moved to handle an opposition-pushed bill to require the government to get the parliamentary approval before seeking a trade deal with another country, one of the three main demands of the opposition blocs as a precondition of the FTA ratification.

Last week, the government came up with a plan to expand the amount of support for the agricultural sector from the current 2.21 trillion won once the FTA takes effect.

The conservative GNP has a majority of 171 seats in the 299-member unicameral house, enough to pass the bill on its own should opposition parties continue to disagree. The party, however, has been careful not to upset voter sentiment by ramming the law through ahead of the Seoul mayoral vote slated for Wednesday.

Seoul and Washington hope to have the trade accord come into effect in January.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)