The churches consider the government bill, the debate on which the lower house recently adjourned, to be reasonable and feasible. On the other hand, they say the enumerative method of calculating the financial compensation for churches on the basis of the restitution law, which some politicians have suggested, proved unfeasible in the past already. "Further aspects of the [government's] bill can be discussed within the debate on it in the lower house committees [after the bill is passed in first reading].
No different form of the bill should be discussed," says the joint Czech ruling party deputy not to support government's church bill ...
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Belgian invents 'Holocaust' tale ... statement by Czech Catholic Primate Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, the board of the Ecumenical Council of Churches led by Pavel Cerny, Czech Jewish communities' federation representative Tomas Kraus, and organisers of the cirkvnimajetek.cz campaign. The campaign several churches launched along with the Towns and Villages' Association on the Internet in March, is aimed to convince people that the government's law settling church-state property relations is urgently needed. Under the bill the government approved a couple of months ago, the state is to return one-third of the property, confiscated by the Communist regime, to churches and religious orders and to give them 83 billion crowns in compensation for the rest in the following 60 years. Along with the interests the sum would climb up to 270 billion crowns. The left-wing opposition criticises the state for wanting to compensate churches more generously than other restitution claimants in the past. Similarly, the bill's opponents in the senior ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS) say the cabinet has not sufficiently explained how the compensation sum was calculated. Like the opposition, they also say the the bill, if passed, would unacceptably burden the next generations. The head of the ODS rebels, deputy Vlastimil Tlusty, said the bill is at odds with the restitution principles and with the law on property assessment. Real estate experts support this opinion, while the Finance Ministry has dismissed it. In a lower house vote earlier this week, the opposition and the ODS rebels had the first reading of the bill removed from the agenda of the house's current session. The debate on it can take place in June at the earliest. ($1=16.295 crowns)
(Ceske Noviny)
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