The Legislative Yuan is to send the Executive Yuan’s version of a proposed special defense budget to its plenary session on Friday next week, it said yesterday after reaching a cross-party consensus.
The parties concluded that the Cabinet’s version would be reviewed alongside the Taiwan People Party’s (TPP) version that would allocate NT$400 billion (US$12.71 billion) for certain weapons systems at a joint meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense and Finance committees.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has said it would also propose a version of the expenditure.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
All other proposals have to be submitted before Thursday next week.
The parties also agreed not to file a motion of reconsideration.
President William Lai (賴清德) in November announced a NT$1.25 trillion special defense budget to be allocated over eight years, including arms purchases from the US.
Opposition lawmakers have refused to deliberate the proposal, saying it lacked clarity.
Speaking to reporters ahead of a legislative meeting, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) yesterday said that letters of offer and acceptance (LOA) from the US for three major arms purchases are set to expire on March 15.
The potential purchases include tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided anti-tank missiles; Javelin anti-armor missiles; and M109A7 self-propelled howitzers.
Given that budget allocations might not be completed in time, Koo urged the committees to authorize the ministry to sign the LOAs with the US before the budget is formally approved to prevent delays or potential cancelation of the procurement.
Meanwhile, KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday said the Democratic Progressive Party bears the greatest responsibility for delays in arms purchases, accusing the party of failing to share details of the deals or US tariff negotiations with the legislature.
The KMT would take the initiative to secure reasonable and necessary arms purchases with its own version of the bill, she said, adding that the party hoped to communicate with the US.
Before delivering a policy address at the legislature yesterday, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told reporters that it would be inappropriate for opposition parties to take the lead on the matter, which should be handled by the Ministry of National Defense and the Executive Yuan.
However, he said he welcomed parties taking a step forward hand-in-hand with the government.
The special budget should incorporate items that safeguard national security and defense autonomy, drive local industrial growth and cater to the needs of the national defense industry, he said.
The legislature also held a cross-party negotiation yesterday afternoon on how the president should deliver a state of the nation report to the Legislative Yuan.
On Monday, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) told reporters that the president would accept an arrangement in which questions would be submitted at once and answered all together in Lai’s address.
During the negotiations, lawmakers initially focused on dividing the president’s address into a three-stage format that fulfills the constitutional norm: first, the president would deliver the state affairs report; second, each party caucus would send representatives to express their views; and third, the president would respond to the key points raised by the caucuses.
However, disagreements remain over how to allocate time and the number of speakers for each caucus, including whether to assign a fixed number of representatives per party or distribute it proportionally based on caucus seats.
“After more than an hour of discussion, it was clear no consensus could be reached. We will schedule another time to continue discussions on this matter,” Han said.
Additional reporting by Lin Hsin-han
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