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Attention: there is a European obligation to cash. Banknotes are more social than that

Is there a European-wide obligation to accept cash? According to the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, yes. and this could put a legal limit on the use of electronic money, which, adored by the left, ZTL ,. is condemned if excessive by both the ECB and the European authorities-

The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in this opinion concerning the case of two German citizens obliged to pay radio and television license fees in the Land of Hesse (Germany). The citizens offered to pay this tariff to the public broadcaster for the Land in cash. The German authority has sent payment orders to citizens citing its payment procedure rules, according to which the tax cannot be paid in cash.

When asked about the case, the Court is of the opinion that EU law¹ provides for an unconditional and unlimited obligation to accept euro banknotes as a means of settling monetary debts.

The question therefore arises whether Member States, whose currency is the euro, can take internal measures that restrict the use of cash.

The Advocate General notes that, although the European Union does not provide for an absolute right to cash payment in all cases, there may be a direct link between the legal tender value attached to cash and the exercise of fundamental rights in the cases. in which there is an element of social inclusion in the use of cash.

The use of money other than its physical form (ie, cash) currently requires the use of basic financial services, to which a not inconsiderable number of people do not yet have access.

For example, those vulnerable individuals (poor, elderly, disabled), for whom cash is the only accessible form of currency and therefore the only means to exercise their fundamental rights. Measures limiting the use of cash as a means of payment should therefore always take into account the social inclusion element of cash as a means of payment.

The Advocate General considers that there is an obligation to take adequate measures to enable vulnerable persons, who do not have access to basic financial services, to fulfill their obligations, in particular those of a public nature and at no additional cost.

In the end, the obligation to cash is nothing more than a desire for absolute and absolutist control of our rulers which must be opposed.

¹: The third sentence of Article 128 (1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), incorporated the third sentence of the first paragraph of Article 16 of Protocol No. 4 on the statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank and Article 10 of Regulation (EC) no. 974/98 of the Council of 3 May 1998 on the introduction of the euro (OJ 1998 L 139, p. 1)


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The article Warning: there is a European obligation to cash. The bills are more social than it comes from ScenariEconomici.it .


This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/attenzione-ce-un-obbligo-europeo-al-contante-le-banconote-sono-piu-sociali-che/ on Fri, 09 Oct 2020 06:00:49 +0000.