Lower house backs church restitution bill in first reading

Prague, Feb 7 (CTK) - The Czech Chamber of Deputies supported the government's bill on property settlement between the state and churches in first reading in spite of the leftist opposition's disapproving stand yesterday.

Under the bill, based on an agreement the centre-right coalition government struck with 17 churches in the Czech Republic in late 2011, the churches are to get back 56 percent of the property that the state confiscated from them under the communist regime. The property to be returned is worth 75 billion crowns.

As compensation for the rest the churches are to be paid 59 billion crowns, over a period of 30 years starting in 2013. Inflation could raise the sum to 78.9 up to 96.24 billion crowns.

Simultaneously, the state will gradually cease to finance churches. The transitional period is to last 17 years.

The opposition yesterday disagreed with both the volume of the property designed for returning and the compensation sum to be paid to churches.

After a six-hour debate, the junior opposition Communists (KSCM) failed to have the bill turned down by the lower house.

The senior opposition Social Democrats (CSSD), for their part, failed to have the bill returned to the government for reworking.

CSSD chairman Bohuslav Sobotka depicted the bill on the state-church property settlement as "a provision of a gift worth 134 billion crowns" by the state to churches.

The centre-right government, which has a majority of votes in the Chamber of Deputies, says the bill settles the property wrongs inflicted upon churches and religious groups after 1948 when the Communists seized power.

Prime Minister Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS) welcomed the bill's success in first reading.

"For 20 years the church restitution has remained an unsolved problem that blocks the development of thousands of villages and towns in this country. I'm glad that the bill is advancing to second reading," Necas said.

He alluded to the fact that a law bars towns from handling the property such as fields, forests and ponds in their surroundings that used to belong to churches and has been blocked pending the state-church property relations settlement.

The bill's critics point out that the return of property to churches is unpopular among a majority of Czechs.

According to public opinion polls, 70 percent of Czechs are opposed to the return of property to churches.

The critics also mind what they call an unaccpeptable sum the financial compensation may reach including inflation.

They point to the lacking list of the property to be returned.

The most radical critics, such as CSSD deputy David Rath, yesterday rebuked mainly the Catholic Church, entitled to the biggest portion of the returned property, for having raised the claim.

The Czech Republic is going to give up its property in favour of the Vatican, Rath said.

Culture Minister Alena Hanakova (TOP 09), the cabinet member is in charge of church-related issues, recalled that the bill is necessary in view of the Constitutional Court's verdict from 2010 saying the must comply with its own post-1989 legal commitment to return the confiscated property to churches.

Moreover, the law has been awaited by municipalities for whom it would unblock the property in question, Hanakova added.

Before second reading, the state-church property settlement bill is to be discussed by lower house committees.

If approved in the final third reading, it will go to the Senate, which is dominated by the opposition and is expected reject it.

The government, nevertheless can easily override the Senate's possible veto in the Chamber of Deputies.

($1=19.152 crowns)