Church financing in Slovakia: New subsidy for 2025 decided!

Church financing in Slovakia: New subsidy for 2025 decided!

Bratislava, Slowakei - On November 27, 2024, the Slovak National Council adopted a comprehensive new regulation on the financing of churches and religious communities. This decision was made by the coalition government under Prime Minister Robert Fico and is an important step to create new framework conditions for the churches. The Catholic Church welcomed the novella, which are linked to previous regulations and which now comes into force from January 1, 2025. According to the existing regulations, state support is no longer measured against the number of clergymen, but to the number of believers, which in particular has disadvantaged smaller churches. Now the amount of the grant is calculated based on the minimum wage. This should enable the churches better financial planning and tackle the parameters that have been drifting apart for years between inflation rate and minimum wages. In 2025, the churches received an additional 4.6 million euros from the state due to the new regulation, reported Kathpress .

state benefits in Germany under pressure

While financial support in Slovakia is changing, the traffic light coalition in Germany plans to abolish annual state services to the churches. At the moment, the churches in Germany receive around 550 million euros per year, which were determined for expropriated churches and monasteries in the course of secularization in the 19th century. Despite the resistance of the federal states, the federal government intends a draft law to abolish these payments in autumn. FDP MP Sandra Bubendorfer-Licht said that the Basic Law does not require the Federal Council's approval, which would make a different way. This reform could lead to taxpayers who are not a church member no longer have to finance for religious communities. According to Tagesschau there was a significant increase in church exits last year, which underlines the need to unmistakation between the state and the church.