The Legislative Yuan yesterday failed to approve an amendment to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) that would impose a ban on “risky” beef products from the US after lawmakers were unable to reach a consensus.
Following its boycott of the plenary session on Friday, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) staged a protest at the speaker’s podium again yesterday morning and stacked placards on the podium.
DPP legislators urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to respect a legislative consensus reached on Nov. 6 to ban the import of beef products that might pose a threat to health.
PHOTO: CNA
Legislators across party lines had agreed to complete the amendments by yesterday.
DPP caucus whip Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) said the DPP would not give in and would insist on specifically prohibiting the import of bovine brains, spinal cords, eyes, intestines, skulls and ground beef.
“The DPP caucus’ stance on the issue is very clear: We must enshrine the ban in law so that any import of risky products from any country will be banned,” said Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮), another DPP caucus whip.
The DPP paralyzed the plenary session after withdrawing from a cross-party negotiation session convened by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) on Monday afternoon.
The KMT and the DPP failed to agree on how to amend the law. The KMT insisted on amending the Act by only authorizing the government to “draw up measures to inspect beef products from areas where the risk of mad cow disease has been under control.”
KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) accused the DPP of manipulating the beef issue to score political points ahead of city and county elections next month.
Lin said the DPP had insisted on banning risky products from areas where cases of mad cow disease had been documented, but other countries could respond by banning the export of Taiwanese pork on the grounds that Taiwan was once hit by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
Lin said the KMT was unwilling to accept the DPP’s terms.
Wang Jin-pyng said he was evaluating how to make the wording of the proposed amendment acceptable to the two parties.
Also See: ANALYSIS: US beef debate highlights nation’s sovereignty woes
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