Czech CSSD committee nods to new vote of no confidence in govt ...
Czech Social Democrats expel MP Snitily from party ...
Czech CSSD to vote on MP Snitily's expulsion in March ... The CSSD, if it returns to power after the next general election scheduled for 2010, will not feel bound by the law and it will largely change it. The Chamber of Deputies interrupted the debate on the church bill by the votes of the opposition and three deputies for the senior ruling Civic Democrats (ODS), and adjourned it until the government explains how it calculated the sum to be provided for the churches. Under the bill, the state would return about one third of the property of religious orders the communist regime confiscated, the rest would be compensated with 83 billion crowns.
The sum would eventually climb up to 270 billion crowns due to interests over the next 60 years. Besides, the state would pay a "transitional" contribution to the churches over the first 20 years. The government has already completed the bill and says it has met the opponents' demands, but deputy Vlastimil Tlusty (ODS), one of the three ODS deputies who voted against the bill, is of the opposite view. The Culture Ministry has done shoddy work, Paroubek said. It is not yet sure whether the government will ask deputies today to return to the debate on the bill and to send it to committees for further discussion. The CSSD says the government bill puts the other citizens and organisations to which the state returned property in the past into disadvantage. "It is entirely nasty in relation to ordinary people. We consider it to be unfair," CSSD deputy group deputy chairman David Rath said. He criticised the government for having used market prices in calculating the value of the church property, and not estimated prices like in other restitution. Today's negotiations of the ODS deputy group produced no agreement between Tlusty's group and the group leadership. The deputy group has found not a single reason to change its stand. The Civic Democratic Party considers the bill on settlement between the state and churches one of the key laws of this election term and it will continue to push it through, ODS deputy group chairman Petr Tluchor said. The CSSD has worked out an alternative bill that presupposes "limited restitution in kind" for church orders. The bill should contain the list of the properties returned. The churches, or a newly founded "religious foundation" managed by churches would get a financial compensation for the properties that would not be returned. The money should be paid from the yields of privatisation of the state property and it should be spent on the churches' religious, social, health care and cultural activities. The bill should also be accompanied by an agreement of the state funding clergymen's pay over a period of ten years, not 20 as the government proposes. ($1=16.320 crowns)
(Ceske Noviny)
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