Calls for a supplementary budget to address energy prices have already begun to grow among parties in Japan\u2019s parliament, just after the enactment of the government\u2019s fiscal 2026 budget this week.<\/p>\n
The annual budget includes \u00a51 trillion ($6.3 billion) in reserve funds, which can be used for gas subsidies and other measures, but there are concerns this may be insufficient if the conflict in\u00a0Iran is prolonged and continues to disrupt global energy supplies.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo protect people\u2019s daily lives, we\u2019ll take necessary measures flexibly while assessing the situation,\u201d Takayuki Kobayashi, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll demand that a supplementary budget reflecting the current situation be compiled as soon as possible,\u201d Kazuhiko Shigetoku, parliamentary affairs chief of the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), said at a party meeting.<\/p>\n
While the annual budget was compiled before the start of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, the government resumed gasoline subsidies in March. The subsidies are now expected to cost much more than the initial estimate of around \u00a5300 billion per month.<\/p>\n
Some in the ruling bloc are also calling for the government to resume\u00a0measures that help people with electricity and gas bills.<\/p>\n
The Democratic Party for the People (DPP), another opposition party, is moving in lockstep with the CRA on the matter. The Middle East conflict and energy crisis are \u201caffecting people\u2019s daily lives in different ways,\u201d said Motohisa Furukawa, DPP parliamentary affairs chief,\u00a0at a news conference. \u201cIt\u2019s essential to take preemptive measures.\u201d<\/p>\n
DPP leader Yuichiro Tamaki has indicated that the party will consider specific measures, noting the need to support small-\u00a0and mid-size companies, farmers and the labor market.<\/p>\n
The government has not yet clarified its response. A senior LDP official said that measures to cope with rising oil prices would not be necessary if the two-week ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran becomes permanent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t make a decision before seeing how the situation evolves,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calls for a supplementary budget to address energy prices have already begun to grow among parties in Japan\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[235,704,234,5033,5613,14,177,179,236,180,178],"class_list":["post-52956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","tag-budgets","tag-cra","tag-diet","tag-dpp","tag-gas","tag-iran","tag-japans-politics","tag-japanese-politics","tag-ldp","tag-politics","tag-politics-of-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}