President Ma Ying-jeou met on the morning of June 9 with a group from Europe and Japan who had attended the 2014 annual meeting of the Taiwan Local Councils Representatives Community Forum. The president welcomed the visitors to Taiwan and briefed them on the impact of public opinion on government in Taiwan.
In remarks, President Ma noted that during the forum, which was held from June 6 to June 8, the representatives from each country exchanged opinions with local assembly members from Taiwan's various cities and counties. The participants took an in-depth look at issues affecting Taiwan's local politics, and sought to find resolutions to various problems, he said. The president remarked that the interaction was extremely meaningful.
President Ma explained that Yoshiaki Matsuda is the leader of the Japan Conference Local Assembly Union, the membership of which includes 1,700 elected officials from various political parties in Japan. Meanwhile, Pilar Rojo Noguera is President of the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE), which is composed of eight member nations from the European Union and 74 European regional chambers with legislative power, he said. The Taiwan Local Councils Representatives Community Forum, President Ma pointed out, was founded in 2010 to pool the experiences of representatives of city and county councils throughout Taiwan to resolve issues faced by local governments. These affiliations have critical influence in local assemblies, he commented.
In discussing the influence of politics at the local level, President Ma noted that the late US House of Representatives Speaker Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics is local." The president stated that he concurs with this stance. He remarked that during his tenure as Taipei City mayor, he also got a strong feeling for the importance of public opinion and governments at the local level. The president cited an example, stating that during his tenure, the Taipei Neihu Technology Park was being planned and the Nankang Software Park was under development. These two parks generate output value of NT$2 trillion annually, which is equivalent to US$67 billion, he said. This demonstrates that empowering local governments helps to promote Taiwan's overall economic development, he added.
As for Taiwan's relations with Japan and the European Union (EU), the president stated, since Taiwan and Japan signed an open skies agreement, interaction between the two sides has become significantly more convenient and the number of visits from each country to the other has risen sharply. He pointed out that the annual number of visits between the two sides stood at 2.5 million before he took office, but has most recently increased to 4 million. In addition, he noted, since the EU began granting visa-free courtesies to visitors from Taiwan three years ago, the number of Taiwanese visiting Europe has also increased noticeably, so ties between Taiwan and Japan and Europe are becoming closer, he said.
The delegation also included Chairman Lin Chin-chang (林晉章) of the Taiwan Local Councils Representatives Community Forum, President Teresa Rey Barreiro-Meiro of Spain's Galician Parliament, and CALRE's Secretary General Xose Anton Sarmiento Mendez.