President Park Geun-hye, now on a tour of Europe, must be happy to hear that the National Assembly has finally ratified free trade agreements with China, New Zealand and Vietnam.

Park had been obsessed with the parliamentary approval of the trade pacts, especially the Korea-China FTA, which will help open a market of 1.3 billion people to Korean products and services.

Outraged by the parliament’s foot-dragging, Park kept putting pressure on the Assembly, mixing personal appeals with direct verbal attacks.  

Park’s prodding helped the ruling party push a deal with the opposition, which had been demanding measures to compensate industries — like the farm sector — which could be damaged by free trade with China.

But such haste resulted in a bad precedent: The ruling and opposition parties agreed with the government to establish a fund to subsidize the farm and fisheries sectors.

Under the agreement, commercial firms, public enterprises and agricultural and fisheries cooperatives will “voluntarily” donate money to the fund, which is projected to reach 1 trillion won ($865 million) over 10 years. Officials said that, in principle, those who will benefit from free trade with China will participate in the project.

This is an ill-advised plan. In the first place, how one will know which industry and which firm benefits how much from the free trade pact with China?

A bigger problem is that this kind of arm-twisting is sure to upset corporations. Given the Korean political and business culture and the way the government regulates the corporate sector, few would dare ignore the call to donate to the fund. 

It is true that farmers will suffer because of the Korea-China FTA, but the level of damage will not be as strong as that of the Korea-U.S. FTA, which took effect four years ago.

At that time, fierce protests by farmers and other activists heavily damaged the presidency of the Lee Myung-bak administration, but no one suggested such a silly idea as establishing what looks like an impromptu relief fund. Park should address the issue herself as soon as she returns from her European trip.