Japan Govt Budget Passage by Fiscal Year-End Unlikely

Tokyo, March 25 (Jiji Press)--There appears to be only a slim chance that the Japanese government's fiscal 2026 regular budget will be enacted before fiscal 2025 ends on Tuesday, despite Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's strong push to meet the deadline.

The draft budget has cleared the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament, but its fate is highly uncertain in the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, where the ruling camp led by the Liberal Democratic Party is a minority force.

The LDP, headed by Takaichi, has entered final-stage negotiations with the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan in an effort to secure the budget's enactment.

To allow more time for budget deliberations, the LDP proposed holding sessions over the coming weekend. In response, the CDP demanded that the LDP abandon its plan to pass the budget bill by the fiscal year-end and called for debates on a provisional budget bill.

On Tuesday, senior members of the Upper House, including Masaji Matsuyama, head of LDP members in the chamber, and CDP leader Shunichi Mizuoka, held discussions on the matter. "We want to have the budget enacted on March 31, even if it requires Saturday and Sunday deliberations," Matsuyama said.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]