It was confirmed that Democratic Party of Korea floor leader Han Byeong-do and People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik held a closed-door lunch meeting on the 29th. To break the impasse in talks on forming the National Assembly for the second half of the year, the two held a separate meeting of floor leaders, excluding the senior deputy floor leaders.
However, on the afternoon of the 30th, negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties on forming the National Assembly collapsed. It appears the separate meeting between the floor leaders also failed to find common ground on whether the ruling party would continue to hold the chair of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee or hand it over to the opposition.
According to political circles on the 30th, the two floor leaders held a closed-door, separate meeting over lunch on the afternoon of the 29th. A political source said, "With no progress in the talks on forming the National Assembly, the two parties' floor leaders met one-on-one without accompanying their senior deputy floor leaders."
In the meantime, the Democratic Party and the People Power Party floor leaders and senior deputy floor leaders have met more than 10 times to negotiate the formation. But there was no progress as both the Democratic Party and the People Power Party refused to give up the Legislation and Judiciary Committee. A political source said, "If the People Power Party had given up the committee, the Democratic Party could have negotiated by giving the People Power Party other key standing committees instead, but with the People Power Party clinging to the committee, negotiations themselves became impossible."
The floor leaders' lunch meeting, arranged abruptly on the 29th, was in effect the last chance to open the floodgates for negotiations. But with the committee issue still unresolved there as well, the talks on forming the National Assembly appear to have ultimately collapsed.
The two floor leaders held a final "2+2" meeting on the afternoon of the 30th with the senior deputies in attendance, chaired by National Assembly Speaker Jo Jeong-sik, but the talks ultimately collapsed. Floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik said, "The negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties that have continued since June have ultimately fallen through," adding, "If the opposition does not take the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, the Assembly's checks and balances will inevitably be broken—that is our position."
Floor leader Han Byeong-do said, "The Democratic Party plans to process 11 standing committees today, and as soon as the committees are in operation, we will speed up work on the piled-up livelihood tasks," adding, "Starting as early as tomorrow, we will normalize the Assembly and work so that legislative outcomes can directly affect people's lives."