Opposition lawmakers yesterday blocked a DPP attempt to make the enactment of a referendum law a priority issue on the legislative agenda.
The opposition fears that a plan to hold a referendum during the year-end legislative race has become a DPP tactic to drag out the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who hosted yesterday's inter-party negotiations, said the opposition unanimously concluded that the law should follow due legislative process like any other, which means that substantive negotiations should be conducted before it is submitted to the legislature for final consideration.
"We are not going to single out the referendum law. All pieces of legislation get equal treatment. A bill can move on to the legislature when negotiations are complete," Wang said.
Following the Executive Yuan's announcement on Wednesday to resume the plant's construction, the opposition yesterday reopened the door to negotiations with the DPP, and the two parties held their first round of dialogue in more than three months.
The main purpose of yesterday's discussion was to arrange the agenda for the first meeting of the session on Feb. 20, when Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) will give the Cabinet's biannual policy address to the legislature. The legislature had refused to let Chang make the address last October, in protest over the Cabinet's decision to scrap the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project.
But just as the tensions between the ruling and opposition parties are calming down, the referendum law is triggering a new conflict.
Opposition legislators considered the proposal by convener of the DPP legislative caucus Chou Po-lun (周伯倫) to prioritize the referendum law as a crude attempt to secure the support of anti-nuclear voters in the year-end election.
"We don't wish to see any political party use inter-party negotiations or even the legislature as a theater to vie for the year-end elections," said Hsieh Chi-ta (
A total of eight proposals for the referendum law, raised by different legislators, are now available in the legislature, some of which have finished a preliminary review. The Executive Yuan has so far not submitted any proposal to the legislature.
The opposition insisted that the referendum law should not be linked to the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project, saying that otherwise political instability would continue.
"The referendum law should only apply to a public policy that has not been implemented. A project that is already underway, such as the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, cannot be scrapped arbitrarily," KMT caucus whip Cheng Yung-chin (
Shen Chih-Hwei (沈智慧), deputy convener of the People First Party caucus, said the DPP should stop arguing about the power plant and focus its strength on revitalizing the nation's economy and improving the unemployment situation.
"With the dispute over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant just concluded, [the DPP] is now trying other ways to ... provoke combat. We don't want to see this happen, nor do the people," Shen said.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
TRAGEDY STRIKES TAIPEI: The suspect died after falling off a building after he threw smoke grenades into Taipei Main Station and went on a killing spree in Zhongshan A 27-year-old suspect allegedly threw smoke grenades in Taipei Main Station and then proceeded to Zhongshan MRT Station in a random killing spree that resulted in the death of the suspect and two other civilians, and seven injured, including one in critical condition, as of press time last night. The suspect, identified as a man surnamed Chang Wen (張文), allegedly began the attack at Taipei Main Station, the Taipei Fire Department said, adding that it received a report at 5:24pm that smoke grenades had been thrown in the station. One man in his 50s was rushed to hospital after a cardiac arrest
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
RSS