The upper house of the Czech parliament vetoed on Wednesday a bill to return billions of dollars worth of confiscated church property, in a blow to one of the centre-right government’s flagship policies.The divisive legislation will now head back for a final vote in the lower house, where Prime Minister Petr Necas’s battered coalition may struggle to get enough support to push it into law.
The plan to hand back land and buildings seized by communist authorities at the height of the cold war has become a test of strength between Necas’s three-party coalition and the centre-left opposition, which dominates the Senate.
Necas came to power in 2010 vowing to settle one of the last disputes left over from the communist era and return the property still held by the government.
But the proposal has proved unpopular in the increasingly secular country, which is due to hold upper house and regional elections this autumn.
The opposition Social Democrats have called the $7 billion package of restitution and compensation – mostly owed to the Roman Catholic Church – inflated and questioned the timing during a recession.
“It is necessary to moderate the wrongs caused to churches by the communist regime … but we are convinced that the government proposal is wrong from the factual and legislative point of view,” said Milan Stech, a Social Democrat and head of the upper house.
Necas’s coalition has seen its strength drop to just 100 votes in the 200-seat lower chamber in recent months, after losing a number of its members to internal disputes and corruption scandals.
Before the widely expected Senate veto, Necas said he was confident he would get at least the 101 votes he heeded.
“I can express conviction that a responsible majority will be found,” Necas said.
If the government finds enough votes to overturn the veto, the law will lead to a one-off jump in this year’s budget deficit of around 1.5 percentage points of GDP, to account for compensation payments due to be spread out over 30 years.