The centre-right coalition government of the Civic Democrats (ODS), TOP 09 and LIDEM cannot be sure to gain a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament, to outvote the Senate's veto of the bill, Sobotka said.
The Chamber of Deputies passed the bill returning the former property confiscated by the communist regime to 17 churches on July 14. The left-dominated Senate, the upper house, turned it down on August 15 as expected.
The government will need at least an absolute majority of 101 votes in the 200-seat lower house to outvote the senators' veto. Deputies will deal with the bill again in September.
At the new talks with other parties, the Social Democrats also want to submit their proposal that a public fund be established to administer the returned property of churches that was provably confiscated after the communists seized power in 1948. It would be used to finance the churches, Sobotka said.
Under the government bill, churches are to be returned land and real estate worth 75 billion and given 59 billion crowns in financial compensation for unreturned property during the following 30 years. The largest sum, 47 billion crowns, would go to the Roman Catholic Church.
The state is to gradually cease financing the churches. The transitional period is to last 17 years.
The CSSD also proposes tax assignation for the churches instead of the financial compensation.
Tax assignations should also go to other civic institutions that would be administered in a transparent way, the CSSD said.
Consequently, citizens should be able to decide on their own whether they would assign a part of their taxes to fund church activities.
"We are convinced that unlike the inappropriate flat financial compensation that the government of (Petr) Necas has proposed, the more democratic tax assignations have a better chance of winning a majority in the Czech public," Sobotka pointed out.
The new bill should terminate all church restitution processes, CSSD shadow finance minister Jan Mladek said.
Further questioning of property rights, which disintegrate private ownership relations, must be halted, he added.