Czech Republic presents a proposal to expropriate russian property in the country

A group of Czech MPs led by Ondrej Kolarz of the TOP 09 party has proposed a bill to "protect the security of the Czech Republic" that would allow the expropriation of foreign property in order to "protect the sovereignty, territorial integrity of the Czech Republic and its democratic principles."

The wording of the draft law is general, it does not explicitly mention russian property, although it is obvious that it is the property in question, and Kolarz himself admits that it will be applied to it in the first place.

According to the authors, the government will decide whether the property proposed by the Foreign Ministry will be expropriated. "In the application for compensation, the government determines the amount of compensation for the property," the document goes on to say, noting that the compensation will be set at the usual price.

This effectively means that the Czech Republic, if it decides to expropriate dozens of properties from the russian federation, will pay for them.

In response to criticism that his proposal contradicts government policy and could help russia finance the war, Kolarz replied: "Theoretically, this is true, but the Czech legal order does not allow any other methods of expropriation. I am afraid that this is the only legal option we have. If someone realizes that it would be better to expropriate without compensation and pushes it through the parliament, which would change our legal system, I would not be against it. Right now, I'm probably not ready to propose this," the MP said.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently studying Kolarz's proposal, so it has not commented on it.

Source: Seznam Zprávy