German lawmakers backed the rebuilding of Berlin's Schloss, setting a limit of 552 million euros ($810 million) in reconstruction costs for the imperial palace blown to pieces by the East German authorities in 1950. The German parliament's budget committee, whose permission is required for all government spending, agreed in a vote late yesterday to provide 440 million euros toward the reconstruction, said Julie Heinl, a spokeswoman for the Transport and Construction Ministry. The state of Berlin is supplying 32 million euros and the remaining 80 million euros is to come from public donations. "This is a good day for us," said Wilhelm von Boddien, director of the Forderverein Berliner Schloss e.V., an association promoting the reconstruction of the palace first built in 1443."The rebuilding of the Schloss is just around the corner."To make space for reconstruction of the palace inhabited by the Prussian rulers and by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany until his abdication in 1918, authorities are dismantling the Communist-era bronze-glass, steel and concrete Palast der Republik. Built in 1976 on the site previously occupied by the Schloss on the boulevard Unter den Linden, the Palast was home to East Germany's powerless parliament. Its planned demolition prompted street protests and a parliamentary appeal last year. Reconstruction of the Schloss is slated to start in 2010. The plan is to recreate the original facade and design an interior to house some of Berlin's antiquities and art, parts of the Humboldt University and the city library.