Unexpected obstacles hinder ratification of US, EU FTAs
Dong-a Ilbo | March 18, 2011
Unexpected obstacles hinder ratification of US, EU FTAs
Koreas free trade agreements with the U.S. and the European Union, which Seoul hopes to ratify by this years first half, face unexpected obstacles to parliamentary ratification.
The Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry in Seoul is reeling from a series of unforeseen events such as errors in Korean translation and the ensuing request for an audit and the U.S. Congresss reluctance to ratify the deal due to political factors.
Doomsayers say Seoul should revise its plan on having the two deals take effect in the years second half after ratifying them in the first half and revising applicable Korean laws.
○ Hopes dashed for FTA with EU
Unlike the agreement with the U.S., Seoul thought the one with the EU would pass the National Assembly relatively “smoothly.” After considering whether to send both bills to parliament at the same time or separately, the government and ruling party decided to go for the EU accord first because they wanted to get the relatively easier task out of the way.
Unlike the agreement with the U.S., which the government changed its initial position that it would not change even a single dot or a comma in additional negotiations with the U.S., the one with the EU had little controversy to the extent that Korean opposition parties have little to oppose.
A surprise development, however, has dragged the ratification process. Trade lawyer Song Gi-ho checked the Korean translation of the deal with the EU and discovered "50 percent" of the original English version was mistranslated into “40 percent” and “20 percent” in the article on country of origin. He reported this to an Internet news outlet.
On the day the mistranslation was announced, Seoul pledged to correct the errors through working-level discussions with the EU after the Korean National Assembly ratified the bill. As more errors were discovered, including wording not included in the original English version being included in the Korean version or expressions that can be perceived as mistranslations, the government repealed the ratification bill and submitted a new one for ratification.
This mishap seriously undermined the credibility of the Foreign Ministry.
Even before the translation fiasco waned, lawyers raised another problem. Minbyun (Lawyers for a Democratic Society) told a news conference Wednesday, “Chief negotiator Kim Jong-hoon`s oral agreement to the tentative effective date in negotiations for the Korea-EU FTA violated the National Assembly’s right to screen a treaty,” adding it would ask the Board of Audit and Inspection to look into the violation.
Documents the Foreign Ministry submitted to Rep. Kang Ki-kap of the progressive Democratic Labor Party said, “The two sides (Korea and the EU) orally agreed to let the agreement tentatively take effect on July 1, 2011,” assuming that their legislatures would complete ratification.
The lawyers also claimed that the ministry clearly violated the National Assembly’s right to decide on ratification and its timing because of failure to report this to parliament or lack of prior approval.
The ministry called the allegations "exaggerated" because it said Kim agreed on the effective date for convenience in the negotiation process and the oral agreement is only a promise that assumes parliamentary ratification and is not binding.
Minbyun, however, claimed that it is clearly against the Constitution for a government official to agree on the timing of ratification in any form.
○ FTA with US drifting away?
The situation for the Korea-U.S. free trade deal is even worse. The Korean government was ready to ratify the agreement ahead of the U.S. when the deal was signed in 2007, but Congress made more demands even before starting the ratification process.
For this reason, Seoul has publicly said the National Assembly will start ratification after seeing Congress do the same. Another twist in the tale, however, is that Republican and Democratic leaders claim that the deal should be ratified along with free trade accords with Panama and Colombia.
While Washington is passive in the deals with the two Latin American countries, which have pending issues such as improvement of labor conditions, Republicans and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus want to ratify the three agreements in a package. So the Korea-U.S. agreement could remain in limbo until the U.S.-Colombia accord is struck.
Critics, however, say Korea struck a wall because it hurried too much for the sake of showing achievement and benefits.
“The government made a mistake in rushing to ratify the (free trade agreement with the U.S.),” said Choi Won-mok, a law professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul. “Because of ambiguous issues such as literal and free translation, we might need a strategy to get the agreement with the EU ratified by the National Assembly in April first and calculate the right timing to ratify the one with the U.S.”
