Cash payment: Cash limits in Europe
www.evz.de
If you want to pay large sums of money abroad in the EU, for example when buying a car, there are a few rules you need to follow. This is because many EU countries have cash limits. This means that cash payments can only be made up to a certain amount.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683421

The EU has quietly imposed cash limits EU-wide:

  • €3k limit on anonymous payments
  • €10k limit regardless (link which also lists state-by-state limits).

From the jailed¹ article:

An EU-wide maximum limit of €10 000 is set for cash payments, which will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money.

It will also strip dignity and autonomy from non-criminal adults, you nannying assholes!

In addition, according to the provisional agreement, obliged entities will need to identify and verify the identity of a person who carries out an occasional transaction in cash between €3 000 and €10 000.

The hunt for “money launderers” and “terrorists” is not likely meaningfully facilitated by depriving the privacy of people involved in small €3k transactions. It’s a bogus excuse for empowering a police surveillance state. It’s a shame how quietly this apparently happened. No news or chatter about it.

¹ the EU’s own website is an exclusive privacy-abusing Cloudflare site inaccessible several demographics of people. Sad that we need to rely on the website of a US library to get equitable access to official EU communication.

update

The Pirate party’s reaction is spot on. They also point out that cryptocurrency is affected. Which in the end amounts to forced banking.

#warOnCash

  • DavidGarcia@feddit.nlEnglish
    614·
    4 months ago

    Will it be inflation adjusted?

    If inflation continues (financial repression to reduce debt and mitigate the aging population makes that likely), that 3000€ will soon be 1500€ in today’s money and you won’t even be able to by a mid range laptop with cash in 10 years.

    At the current official 2.5% inflation it’ll happen anyway after 28 years.

    It’s basically a cash ban over the next decades. Great news in the current private surveillance economy.

    • activistPnk@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      141·
      4 months ago

      Belgium, France, and Spain all have had cash limits of €3k, €3k, and €1k respectively for some time now. And the US has a variety of reporting triggers set at $10k. None of those limits have been inflation adjusted. So indeed more and more people become subject to unwarranted surveillance as time moves further beyond 1984.

      But then consider Germany. Germans are wise enough to understand what they give up when giving up cash, so while the EU law has little effect on Belgium, France, & Spain, Germans are getting fucked by the EU on this and AFAIK there is no inflation adjustment at the EU level either.

      It’s a shit law but if we must have it I would like to see it indexed to postage costs, which has been going up by leaps and bounds. The cost of printing a page at the library has gone from 5¢ to 10¢ in the past year… so that would be a good inflation index for this as well.

      • DavidGarcia@feddit.nlEnglish
        111·
        4 months ago

        Germans might legitimately riot if cash is straight up outlawed, so that’s why polticians have to resort to underhanded tactics like this.

        Personally, I think barrels of Campbell’s condensed tomato soup is the best inflation proxy, mostly because it’s really funny:

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      And that’s while top EU officials are still not being elected, and are in fact personally mostly shitty people and most likely very corrupt and with solid background of being in bed with dictatorships and cleptocracies.