[Excerpt from the 217th Supreme Council Meeting]

“Bipartisan efforts must be made to achieve national integration and come up with countermeasures against COVID-19.”

□ February 26, 2020 (Wed.)

■ Lee Hae-chan, Chairman of the DPK

Now is the time for the private, public, and governmental sectors to join forces and make swift and bold responses to prevent COVID-19 from spreading across the nation and overcome the outbreak as soon as possible. An emergency consultative meeting of high-level officials from the government and the ruling party was held yesterday, in which urgent issues were thoroughly discussed, including measures to stabilize the supply of masks, economic measures such as a request for additional budget, and measures against frequently infected areas and religious groups, and prepared comprehensive countermeasures. The ruling DPK is taking the overcoming of the novel coronavirus outbreak as a top priority, so that as parts of its efforts, it decided to resort to online election campaigns over face-to-face election campaigns. It is time for the ruling and opposition parties alike to make bipartisan efforts to achieve national integration and put heads together to map out comprehensive countermeasures to fight off the epidemic.

The plenary session of the National Assembly, which is convened today, is encouraged to reach an agreement to form a special committee on the coronavirus crisis and pass “Corona three bills” so that the country will rapidly rein the spread of the novel coronavirus and provide financial assistance to those suffering economic damages from the outbreak. It is better to begin a discussion on the allocation of additional budget as soon as possible. In case that supplementary budge execution does not occur in a timely fashion, the ruling DPK plans to propose the invocation of an emergent financial ordinance. The ruling DPK is resolved to contain the novel coronavirus outbreak. As the leader of the ruling party, I kindly ask all lawmakers to be committed to engage in a struggle to fight off the epidemic.

“여야 막론하고 국민통합과 코로나19대응책 마련에 집중해야”

□ 일시 : 2020년 2월 26일(수) 오전 10시

□ 장소 : 국회 본청 당대표회의실

■ 이해찬 대표

지금은 코로나19의 전국 확산을 막고 조기에 극복하기 위해 민·관·정 모두 힘을 모아 과감하고 신속하게 대응해야 한다. 정부와 당은 어제 긴급 고위당정협의회를 열고 마스크 수급 안정화 방안과 추경 등 경제대책, 감염 다발 지역 및 교단 대책 등 당장 시급한 문제를 집중 논의하고 종합적인 대책을 마련했다. 당도 대면 선거운동을 전면 중단하고 온라인 선거운동으로 전환하는 등 코로나19 극복을 최우선 과제로 하고 있다. 여야를 막론하고 정치권은 국민 통합과 대응책 마련에 집중해야 한다.

오늘 본회의에서 국회 ‘코로나19대책특위’ 구성과 ‘코로나 대응 3법’ 통과가 이뤄져 감염병 확산을 빠르게 억제하고 국민들의 경제적 피해를 지원할 수 있도록 해야 한다. 서둘러 추경에 대한 논의도 시작해야한다. 추경이 적시에 되지 않는다면 여당은 긴급재정명령권 발동을 건의하겠다. 민주당은 이번 코로나19 사태에 결연한 자세로 임하고 있다. 모두 비상한 각오로 임해주시기 바란다.

2020년 2월 28일

더불어민주당 국제국