On the 18th, the ruling and opposition parties adopted a personnel hearing report for Lee Jae-myung's government's first cabinet, including candidates for Minister of Economy and Finance Kwon Yoon-cheol, Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun, and Minister of Trade, Industry, and Energy Kim Jeong-gwan. The opposition party, People Power Party, set an internal policy to 'suspend the adoption of reports for all ministerial candidates,' but decided to cooperate in the adoption of the hearing reports for the three candidates considering the urgent situation regarding negotiations with the U.S.
The National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee, Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, and Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs, and Startups Committee held full meetings on the same day and voted on the adoption of the hearing reports for the three candidates. As a result, the number of hearing report adoptions for the 16 ministerial candidates and the candidate for the Commissioner of the National Tax Service increased to four, including Minister of Science and ICT Bae Gyeong-hun.
People Power Party has raised issues regarding the qualifications of candidates with concentrated allegations during this personnel hearing phase, including candidate for Minister of Gender Equality and Family Kang Sun-woo and candidate for Minister of Education Lee Jin-sook, while also calling for the resignation of candidate for Minister of National Defense Kwon Oh-eul, candidate for Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun, candidate for Minister of Unification Jeong Dong-young, and candidate for Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon, citing them as 'unqualified.'
However, with the upcoming tariff negotiations with the U.S., considering the importance of the leadership positions in the economy, diplomacy, and trade for national interests, the decision was made to cooperate in adopting the hearing reports for these three candidates.
Song Eon-seok, the chairman of the emergency response committee and floor leader, noted during the floor strategy meeting that 'given the urgent situation where the U.S. reciprocal tariffs are less than two weeks away, we will cooperate to expedite the approval of the hearing reports for the candidates for Minister of Economy and Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Trade, Industry, and Energy so that they can be immediately involved in the tariff negotiations.'
However, the opposition party maintains that it cannot cooperate regarding the other candidates, as the allegations against them have not been sufficiently clarified, making the additional adoption of hearing reports between the ruling and opposition parties difficult.
On that day, the proposal for the adoption of the hearing report for candidate for Commissioner of the National Tax Service Im Kwang-hyun was not presented in the committee and was postponed.
The ruling party's secretary of the Strategy and Finance Committee Jeong Tae-ho pointed out that 'the ruling and opposition secretaries had agreed to adopt hearing reports for the Minister of Economy and Finance and the Commissioner of the National Tax Service, but suddenly we were informed just before the morning full committee meeting that the hearing report for the National Tax Service Commissioner could not be adopted.'
The floor leaders of the ruling and opposition parties are expected to meet in the National Assembly that afternoon to discuss whether to agree on the hearing report for the remaining candidates. The Democratic Party is in a position that if the agreement between the ruling and opposition parties fails, it can adopt the personnel hearing report unilaterally in the relevant standing committee.
According to the Personnel Hearing Act, if the National Assembly exceeds the deadline for adopting the report (within 20 days after receiving the personnel hearing request), the president can request a resubmission within 10 days, and if the hearing report is not adopted within the resubmission deadline, the president can appoint the ministerial candidates.