Cash is true, this is especially true in Germany. The Germans comparatively like to pay with bills and coins and rarely use cards or even their cell phones, like international surveys show. But at least with very large amounts, the EU Commission should no longer be able to do this. The Brussels authority has in the summer Bills presentedwith which she wants to intensify the fight against money laundering. This includes the plan to introduce an EU-wide limit for cash payments of 10,000 euros.
Germany is one of nine member states without such a limit. The only restriction in this country is that ID must be shown for amounts over 10,000 euros. This is a stark contrast to Greece: There customers are allowed to pay a maximum of 500 euros in cash – the government hopes to curb tax evasion in this way. In France and Portugal it is 1000 euros; in other EU countries the limit is more generous, in Croatia it is 15,000 euros. The Commission’s proposal would also allow governments to set different limits as long as they do not exceed EUR 10,000.
“Carrying so much money around in your pockets is pretty difficult: Most people don’t do it,” said EU financial market commissioner Mairead McGuinness in an interview with the SZ. “But we respect the fact that citizens like cash and we don’t want to get rid of it.” Your agency also argues that the large differences in caps distort competition. Traders in countries with high limits could look forward to additional business if criminals avoid states with low upper limits – to the detriment of the traders there. According to the Commission, Belgian jewelers estimate that they are missing out on 20 to 30 percent of sales because neighboring countries have so far been more lax in handling cash payments.
The Commission is also not the only authority pushing for strict ceilings. In December 2020, the Federal Audit Office recommended that the federal government check a limit of 5,000 euros in the fight against money laundering. And the end of the 500 euro notes follows the same logic: the European Central Bank already decided 2016, no longer to issue the purple note in order to make money laundering and undeclared work more difficult. Three years later, the last 500 were brought to the wealthy people; but they retain their validity. Around 400 million pieces are still in circulation.
For some MEPs that goes too far
However, the Commission’s approach to the ceilings has met with criticism in the European Parliament. “Not every cash purchase is suspected of being money laundering, and you can also use lower-threshold methods to combat money laundering,” complained CSU MP Markus Ferber. “The Commission would do well to take national sensitivities into account and leave it to the Member States to decide whether and what amount there are cash limits,” says the economic policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic EPP Group. There is no doubt: the fun stops with cash.