Lee says ministerial disagreements are natural, part of democratic process

President Lee Jae-myung said Tuesday that differing positions among government ministries are "a natural phenomenon," adding that Cabinet members must argue — even clash — so that the public does not have to.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting he chaired at Government Complex Sejong, Lee said he had noticed recurring criticism of his administration. "There have been comments lately about ministries being out of step with each other, about inter-ministry conflicts," he said, before pushing back against that framing.

The remarks came after the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Employment and Labor publicly disagreed over whether to exempt so-called "mega special zones" — including a planned semiconductor factory in South Jeolla Province and Gwangju — from the 52-hour workweek rule.

Lee said the old practice of coordinating all internal differences behind closed doors before presenting only a finalized position to the public was precisely the kind of "backroom administration" that had drawn criticism in the past. "When you run an open, transparent government, ministries freely express views from the earliest stages of discussion, the public weighs in, and through that process of adjustment you ultimately reach a conclusion — that is the most democratic way," he said.

He said it was wrong to treat visible disagreement between ministries as something that should not happen. "This should be seen as a democratic process," Lee said. "Criticizing it as if differing ministerial views are inherently improper — I don't think that is right or desirable."

Lee also pointed to the Cabinet meeting format itself as evidence of the approach. "We opened up these Cabinet meetings for a reason," he said. "If all we were doing was presenting final decisions to the public, we could just have a spokesperson do that — we wouldn't be debating for one hour, two hours, sometimes several hours." He said the extended discussions were meant to surface potential disagreements or problems and to incorporate a range of views.

He added a caveat, saying that excessive discord would be a problem, but reiterated that ministries holding different positions on a given issue should not be treated as a failure in itself. "That alone is not the problem," he said.

Lee also addressed criticism that his administration's tax policies had become a "patchwork," saying the right approach was to put forward proposals and revise them when better arguments emerged. "If we put out a position and a valid counterargument comes in, reflecting that is the correct attitude," he said.

"Policy is policy precisely because it is open to debate and differing views," Lee said. "Truth and policy are different things." He added that proposals his administration puts forward carry room for revision. "It means they are not yet finalized," he said.