Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang revisit administrative merger despite differing positions

Talks on merging Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang are starting again, but the three regions are entering the discussion with different positions.

The South Gyeongsang provincial government said the fourth Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam Policy Council would meet in Busan on the eighth. Busan Mayor Jeon Jae-soo, Ulsan Mayor Kim Sang-wook and South Gyeongsang Governor Park Wan-soo are all scheduled to attend.

The council, launched in July 2023, serves as the top decision-making body of the three-region superregional economic alliance. This will be its first meeting since the ninth locally elected administrations began on July 1, and the first time the three leaders have gathered to discuss cooperation.

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The council is expected to be an opportunity to confirm the differences in our positions on administrative integration. However, the fact that discussions on administrative integration are restarting is meaningful in itself.

The regions plan to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation as a single living and economic zone. They will review joint tasks in industry, transport, daily life and administration, identify projects that could gain effectiveness through joint action, and discuss stronger coordinated responses. The outcome will be released as a joint declaration.

Preparatory working-level and coordination meetings were held last month, but the regions reportedly remained divided over administrative integration. A South Gyeongsang official said the council would likely confirm the differences in their positions, while adding that restarting the discussion itself had significance.

Earlier, Park Wan-soo and then-Busan Mayor Park Hyeong-jun had proposed a resident referendum this year, followed by elections for an integrated local government leader during the April 2028 parliamentary elections if the merger passed. They also planned to invite Ulsan to join. The proposal stalled after Park Hyeong-jun lost the June local election. Newly elected Busan Mayor Jeon Jae-soo and Ulsan Mayor Kim Sang-wook campaigned instead on pursuing a looser special alliance. Park Wan-soo has maintained that a resident-led merger should proceed directly, arguing that a special alliance would require unnecessary public spending, staff and administrative resources and slow integration.

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A resident referendum should achieve integration led by residents, and the integrated local government must secure status and authority appropriate to it. A special alliance requires unnecessary budgets, personnel and administrative capacity and slows integration. It is desirable to move directly toward administrative integration.