Taiwan approves $93 billion budget after 266-day deadlock

Taiwan’s opposition-controlled parliament has approved the government’s annual budget, ending a record 266-day political deadlock and preserving funding for a drone programme considered central to the island’s defence plans.

Lawmakers approved the $93 billion budget late on August14, after the spending plan passed its legal deadline. President William Lai Ching-te’s administration has faced repeated clashes with opposition parties over government spending since Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party lost its parliamentary majority in 2024, Al Jazeera reports.

Funding for drone development was retained despite an earlier proposal by the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) to cut the allocation by 70%. The KMT withdrew the proposed reduction after concluding that there was no wasteful overlap between the development and procurement programmes it had initially cited as the reason for the cut.

The final budget includes several other reductions, including a 60% cut to special allowances for heads of government agencies, a 2.5% reduction in spending on military equipment and facilities, and a 50% cut to media policy and publicity budgets.

Before the vote, the government had been operating under a provisional budget mechanism that allowed it to continue paying civil servants and financing welfare programmes.

Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu said the prolonged dispute had created “social division and a constitutional impasse” and urged the government and opposition to seek greater compromise.

Lai said parliamentary oversight and review of the budget were an important constitutional responsibility.

By Sabina Mammadli