Busan pushes 'federation first' as Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang integration talks hit early snag

Talks on merging Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province into a single mega-region — revived with the launch of the ninth elected term of local government — are already running into trouble. A sharp divergence has emerged between South Gyeongsang Province Governor Park Wan-su, who wants to push straight for full administrative integration, and Busan's top policy official, who publicly staked out a "federation first" position at an open forum Wednesday, making the gap between the two sides unmistakable.

Yun Jeong-no, Busan's chief planning officer, told a panel discussion at the 2026 Southern Region Development Forum held Wednesday afternoon at Busan City Hotel that "in the long run, administrative integration can be seen as a goal, but at this stage we must start with a metropolitan federation, which has the highest feasibility." He argued that the three regions could begin jointly handling agreed-upon functions — such as wide-area transport, industry and talent development — while preserving existing administrative boundaries and identities.

Governor Park has taken a sharply different view. In an interview with The Herald Business last August, he said there was no need to hire hundreds of civil servants or build a new government complex to run a wide-area administration. "About 15 people — five from each city and province — would be enough to handle wide-area affairs, and that would be far more efficient," he said, adding that "a special federation is meaningless unless it leads to administrative integration."

Park reiterated that position at the fourth Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang policy council meeting, held Sept. 8 in Haeundae, Busan. "My thinking on the Busan-South Gyeongsang administrative integration roadmap and procedures that I announced together with the Busan mayor during the eighth elected term has not changed," he said, drawing a clear line against the special local government model.

At that same meeting, Busan Mayor Jeon Jae-soo said problems had arisen from the administrative integration of Gwangju and South Jeolla Province, and maintained that "a special federation like a mega-city should come first." With Busan's planning chief now echoing that federation-first stance at Wednesday's forum, the persistent gap between Busan and South Gyeongsang Province over how to proceed was once again laid bare.

Park Jae-wook, an emeritus professor at Silla University who presented at the forum, said the Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang special federation launched in 2022 had effectively collapsed within six months because it was a "hollow federation" with no real authority or funding, and because there had been no public deliberation. He proposed pursuing both a Busan-Ulsan-South Gyeongsang metropolitan federation and a Busan-South Gyeongsang administrative integration simultaneously, letting each proceed at its own pace. His three-stage roadmap calls for preparing to relaunch the metropolitan federation and drawing up a joint project budget in the second half of 2026 through the first half of 2027; finalizing special legislation and holding a referendum in the second half of 2027 through 2028; and transferring the federation's functions, organizations and assets to a unified special city from 2029 onward.

The forum also drew pointed criticism of the dispute over methodology itself. Park Jae-yul, standing co-chair of the Busan Citizens' Alliance for Decentralization and Balanced Development, said the three regions had failed to mount even a joint response to the second round of public institution relocations due in the second half of this year. "Stop burning energy on a fight over methods," he said, "and first secure real authority — such as maritime tax jurisdiction — under the banner of a maritime capital region."

Jeong Hyeon-min, a senior vice president at the Busan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, traced the 2022 federation's failure to insufficient project development and called for presenting concrete joint initiatives that residents could feel — jobs, industry and transport. Lee Yong-ju, a professor at the University of Ulsan, cautioned that the numbers alone — a population of about 7.7 million and a regional gross domestic product of 300 trillion won ($221 billion) — would not automatically generate benefits, pointing to cases like Finland where the cost of managing inter-regional conflict had outweighed the savings from integration.

Ki Woo-sik, policy committee chair of the Gwangju Civic Organizations Council, who has firsthand experience of the early administrative integration of Gwangju and South Jeolla Province, warned that "integration talks should not even begin unless citizen consensus is guaranteed," adding that "when it comes down to it, politics tends to amplify conflict rather than resolve it." He also offered a note of self-reflection: Gwangju and South Jeolla Province had pursued integration drawn by a 20 trillion won incentive, and gifts including a Honam semiconductor project had followed, "but we were not prepared to receive them."