People Not Amused by EU Efforts to ‘De-Cash’ their Lives

Jon Geopolitics

By Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at WOLF STREET. In January 2017 the European Commission announced it was exploring the option of imposing upper limits on cash payments, with a view to implementing cross-regional measures as soon as 2018. To give the proposal a veneer of respectability and accountability the Commission launched a public consultation on the issue. Now, the answers are in, but they are not what the Commission was expecting.
A staggering 95% of the respondents said they were opposed to a cash ceiling at EU level. Even more emphatic was the answer to the following question:
‘How would the introduction of restrictions on payments in cash at EU level benefit you, or your business or your organisation (multiple replies are possible)?’
In the curious absence of an explicit ‘not at all’ option, 99.18% chose to respond with ‘no answer.’ In other words, less than 1% of the more than 30,000 people consulted could think of a single benefit of the EU unleashing cross-regional cash limits.

This post was published at Wolf Street by Don Quijones ‘ Jul 14, 2017.