RPT-Czech govt mulls $4.3 bln church compensation

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The Czech government may pay 83 billion crowns ($4.29 billion) to churches in compensation for property confiscated by the country's former communist rulers, Culture Minister Vaclav Jehlicka said on Sunday.

"This is the result of joint talks of government and church commissions," Jehlicka said in a debate on the public Czech Television.

Jehlicka said the sum would be paid out over 60 to 70 years if the plan is approved by the Cabinet and by parliament.

The communists, who ruled in the former Czechoslovakia from 1948 until 1989, confiscated most private property and closed down a number of monasteries.

Many priests and monks were jailed or emigrated, and a number of churches and monasteries were abandoned or served as army barracks and storage space.

The sum of 83 billion crowns is equal to about 2.4 percent of the country's annual gross domestic product -- all goods and services produced -- and is nearly the same as the expected central government budget deficit this year.

[PRAGUE/Reuters/Finance.cz]