President Chen Shui-bian (
"Last week, the EU discussed the issue of formulating a new constitution to cope with the increase in its members from 15 countries to 25 next year," Chen said.
"It was a very meaningful communication and, just like the EU, Taiwan needs a new constitution that fits the island's present realities," he said.
Chen made the remarks while receiving a group of German and US legal experts, including the vice president of Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, Winfried Hassemer.
On Wednesday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweights revealed the president's plan to enact a new Constitution in 2008.
Chen, who is also DPP chairman, said yesterday that his party is doing the preliminary work for a new constitution. He said a compete draft of the new document should be put to a referendum in 2006.
"If all goes well, the new constitution can be put into force May 20, 2008, to coincide with the inauguration of a new president," he said.
After complaints by DPP legislators that the party's constitutional task force didn't contain enough lawmakers, Presidential Office Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (
"Chen proposed creating a new constitution in 2006, and officially putting it into practice in 2008. It is a very natural process because when we decide the new constitution by referendum in 2006, there will still be legal procedures to go through," Chiou said.
"Even if the new constitution is announced in 2007, it cannot be carried out immediately, so we estimate 2008 is about the time when all the procedures will have been finished and the new constitution can come into effect," he said.
Chiou said that DPP legislators such as Shen Fu-hsiung (
He added that Chen had stated clearly that all parties and the entire nation would work on creating the document and that the DPP caucus will be needed to negotiate with other parties.
"The DPP prefers not to take the road of amending the Constitution," Chiou said, adding that over two-thirds of the Constitution would need to be amendment.
Chiou said the current amendment procedure is convoluted and would be criticized by society, making it necessary to decide on a new constitution through a referendum.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS