 |
|
South Korean President Moon Jae-in presides over a Blue House cabinet meeting on Sept. 11. (Blue House photo pool)
|
Submits motion to National Assembly along with overview of implementation costs
A motion to request National Assembly ratification of the Apr. 27 Panmunjom Declaration was approved on Sept. 11 at a cabinet meeting presided over at the Blue House by President Moon Jae-in. The decision comes 138 days after the adoption of the “Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula” at an inter-Korean summit on Apr. 27. The government submitted the ratification plan to the National Assembly the same day along with an estimate of the declaration’s implementation costs for review by the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee. In the estimate budget submitted to the National Assembly, the Ministry of Unification projected a need for an additional 298.6 billion won (US$265.0 million) next year for implementation of the declaration’s provisions, including cooperative railway, road, and forestry efforts along with divided family reunions and operation of a joint inter-Korean liaison office. The 298.6 billion won amount was already reflected in the 2019 budget announced by the ministry on Aug. 28. Blue House spokesperson Kim Eui-kyum explained, “The submission of the Panmunjom Declaration ratification motion to the National Assembly is a process of gaining the public’s consent not just for this inter-Korean summit, but for the long future process of denuclearization and establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula.” He went on to ask the National Assembly to “pass it as quickly as possible.” The estimate budget drafted by the Ministry of Unification included five areas of efforts related to implementation of the Panmunjom Declaration next year: linking and modernization of railways and roads (grants and loans), forestry cooperation, social/cultural/athletic exchange, divided family reunions, and inter-Korean liaison office operation. The estimate of 298.6 billion represents the ministry’s 2019 budget for the five projects (471.2 billion won/US$418.2 million) minus the 172.6 billion won (US$153.2 million) budget for this year. Explaining the estimate budget’s calculation of only necessary 2019 costs rather than all anticipated funding for the declaration’s implementation, the ministry said it was “realistically difficult to develop a year-by-year estimate of costs prior to development of a financial support plan based on on-site surveys of regions in the North and detailed area-based agreements between South and North.” The government’s inclusion of only estimated 2019 costs without a calculation of the total amount of projected funds needed for the declaration’s implementation could be a source of controversy in the National Assembly. The Blue House previously requested that the National Assembly pass the Panmunjom Declaration ratification plan ahead of a scheduled third inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang on Sept. 18–20, but the ruling and two main opposition parties agreed to resume discussions after first seeing the outcome of that summit. By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer, and Kim Bo-hyeop, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
