The establishment of the commission was on Tuesday pushed through by three deputies from Topolanek's senior ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS), who are dissatisfied with the bill and have had it withdrawn from the lower house's agenda twice, along with the opposition. "The parliamentary commission will Czech PM Topolanek has diabetes - press ...
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I view this as a positive chance, not as a step to freeze the bill for many months," Topolanek said. Under the government's bill, churches in the Czech Republic are to receive one-third of their former property, confiscated by the Communists, and financial compensation of 83 billion crowns for the remaining two-thirds. The compensation is to be paid gradually for six decades. Along with the interests, the sum is to climb up to 270 billion crowns. ODS MP Vlastimil Tlusty and his supporters in the ODS say the compensation sum has not been explained sufficiently. They say they are in favour of state-church property settlement, but want it to be in harmony with the existing restitution laws. The blockage of the bill by the ODS rebels has displeased mainly the junior ruling Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL). Topolanek today said the commission will enable a serious debate about the value of the church property and about possible other ways to compensate churches for the property that cannot be returned to them. "Agreement could be struck if we got rid of expedient populist suggestions by the group around Vlastimil Tlusty," Topolanek said. He remarked, nevertheless, that the same debate could have been conducted on the lower house committees' level if the house had approved the bill in first reading. The government wants to settle the issue by the end of its term in office, 2010, so that the handling of former church property be unblocked after 15 years, for the benefit of the hundreds of municipalities concerned, Topolanek said. ($1=15.762 crowns)
(Ceske Noviny)
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