Despite a partisan dispute over procedural issues, the Executive Yuan hopes that the legislature will pass the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China by late next month to facilitate its implementation on Jan. 1 next year, an official said yesterday.
The agreement, which was signed on Tuesday in the Chinese city of Chongqing, was approved by the Executive Yuan on Thursday and forwarded immediately to the Legislative Yuan for review.
The legislature is currently in its summer recess, but is planning to begin a one week special legislative session on Wednesday, mainly to deal with the agreement.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
However, there have been concerns that political wrangling might impede the session’s proceedings in light of the differences between the party caucuses on the procedure for reviewing the ECFA.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said that the agreement should be screened clause-by-clause. However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus said the legislature did not have the power to unilaterally alter the agreement and could only endorse or reject it in entirety.
An official who spoke on condition of anonymity said there were precedents in which free-trade agreements signed between Taiwan and other countries, such as Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras, have been reviewed clause-by-clause in the legislature, although their contents were not changed.
The official urged the legislators to sort out their differences on the issue.
KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said his caucus hoped inter-party negotiations would be held on the ECFA in the upcoming provisional session.
A second provisional session could be held one month later, when the negotiation deadline has passed, to enact the agreement, Lin said.
Meanwhile, head of the DPP’s policy committee Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) reiterated his party’s stance that the controversy over the ECFA-screening method must first be resolved in the upcoming provisional session before the legislature can begin screening the agreement.
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