Premier to present budget plan at Legislature next week amid ongoing impasse

Taipei, Oct. 24 (CNA) A standoff at the Legislature over a Cabinet-proposed central government budget plan for fiscal year 2025 remained unresolved following another round of inter-party negotiations on Thursday.

The negotiations between the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus and their counterparts from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and the Taiwan People's Party represented the latest attempt to break the budget impasse, but yielded limited results.

The three-hour talks resulted in an agreement that Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and other Cabinet officials would present the budget proposal on the legislative floor and take questions from lawmakers on Nov. 1 and Nov. 5.

The three caucuses also agreed to resume efforts to end the budget impasse after the Cabinet presentations.

The deadlock derives from a disagreement between the ruling and opposition party lawmakers, with the opposition holding a majority of seats in the lawmaking body, over government funding for compensation to Indigenous peoples for a logging ban.

The issue has kept the budget proposal presented by the Cabinet from passing its first reading -- a necessary step before the bill can be sent to various legislative committees for more detailed deliberation -- since the new legislative session began on Sept. 20.