The lower chamber of Parliament rejected the treaty in 2003, saying the Catholic Church would receive preferential treatment over other churches and that it would be disadvantageous for the country, considered one of the most atheist in the European Union.

The document was signed Thursday in Prague by conservative Prime Minister Petr Fiala and the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Fiala called it a "balanced" document that "fully respects our legal order." The full text was not expected to be made public until after the treaty is ratified.

The document still has to be approved by both houses of Parliament and ratified by President Petr Pavel to become effective.

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Seventeen religious denominations - Christian and Jewish - are legally entitled to recover or be compensated for assets confiscated during the post-World War II Cold War.

As the largest denomination, the Catholic church is entitled to receive up to 80 percent of the compensation package.

The assets are valued at about 2.9 billion euros. They include about 40,000 hectares of land, a UNESCO-listed Baroque church, a castle and art works.

The religious groups are also entitled to financial compensation worth 59 billion koruna (about US$2.7 billion) for assets that can't be returned in kind.

The Party says the compensation is "excessive" and has presented a bill for it to be taxed at 19 percent from next year.

The bill is considered likely to pass because of the leverage the Party has with the new minority government of populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis.

Babis relied on the Party's backing to win a confidence vote last week.

"It boggles the imagination," said Father Stanislav Pribyl, the secretary general of the Czech Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference.

"How can you impose a tax on this (compensation)? We are the creditor and the state is the debtor here!"

Believers are a minority in the Czech Republic's 10.6 million population.

About eight-and-a-half million people identified as non-believers left the religion column empty in the 2011 census.

Under communism, the Catholic church and others suffered severe persecution including the confiscation of property and the imprisonment, torture and killing of priests.

"The Communists have never cut themselves off from their past, they caused economic damage, ruined lives and people's health," Pribyl says.

"If these people now want to slap a tax on the compensation, which is a partial remedy for all that injustice, it's a scandal."

Communist lawmaker Vladimir Konicek, who is leading the tax bill, says "What is scandalous is the amount.

"In the end, they may get the payment and, if the court says yes, the assets too. So, they'll get it twice."

Source:

• CEBY Daily News
• La Croix
• Image: CzechTourism

The problem has its roots in a rectangular tent made of black plastic that looks like an oversized mobile wardrobe. It's as tall as a man, almost completely odor-tight and provides space for four fully grown cannabis plants. The "Growshop" in the Prague city district of Zižkov sells the tent for the equivalent of €400 ($520), including a fan, ventilation ducts, a 400 Watt spotlight, fertilizer and a bag of potting soil. It's easy to set up this black contraption at home and start growing your own weed. Any 14-year-old can do it — and that's the problem. The market is flooded with marijuana.

"Prices are falling," says Marek, a local dealer with a hairdo that looks like a wire wig. He has picked out a restaurant near the Charles Bridge, where he orders goulash with mashed potatoes and complains about declining profits. The dope-dealing business has seen better days, he says. He currently gets 1,500 crowns, or roughly €60 ($78), for 10 grams of weed. Regular customers — who Marek prefers to calls "friends" — buy on credit.

To avoid boring his "friends," he regularly brings them samples of new strains. "White Widow" is currently doing well, meaning that it gets you high as a kite. Marek stresses that his product is far better than what the competition offers. "My stuff is grown with love, not like the shit that the Vietnamese produce. They grow their weed in warehouses." The Vietnamese are the second problem. Marek says they only care about business, not quality, like the Czech growers do. They aren't devoted to the art of gardening, he claims.

Both Marek and his suppliers benefit from the fact that reefer has become an integral part of Czech folklore since the early 1990s, like pilsner beer and dumplings with sauce. Half of all Czechs between the ages of 15 and 34 have smoked pot at least once in their lives. According to statistics by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the Czech Republic ranks among the top cannabis-smoking nations in Europe, right up there with Italy and Spain. Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: The Prague Post

The deal under which the Czech government will pay churches billions of dollars was signed despite left-wing opposition in what is the European Union's most atheistic nation.

Those who signed the agreement — including Catholics, Protestants and Jews — will receive just over half of their former properties now held by the state, plus compensation for those that were destroyed.

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