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When it was announced late last week that the German government planned to set a €5,000 limit on payments with cash, it barely raised an eyebrow in our newsroom.Limits on cash transactions are standard in other large European countries, including Italy, France and the UK, and this seemed to be a case of conservative Germany slowly falling in line with its neighbours.We should have known better.The outcry came from all quarters, with the populist right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) just as vocal as the right-on left-wing Green Party and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).Economic weekly WirtschaftsWoche made the plans the cover story on Friday's edition, titled "Save cash!". Die neue #WirtschaftsWoche: Rettet das Bargeld! Morgen am Kiosk, schon heute digital – über https://t.co/MDb54BLkaH pic.twitter.com/dgTaeQt4SM — WirtschaftsWoche (@wiwo) 11. Februar 2016And an article in highly regarded broadsheet the Süddeutsche Zeitung suggested the move was nothing less than a step in the direction of totalitarianism.The immediate suspicion was that - far from being aimed at preventing terrorism and organized crime as the government professed - the move was meant to help the state pry into the smallest minutiae of Germans’ lives.“The argument, so beloved after 9/11, that it’s a way of combating terrorism is ridiculous and has no basis in scientific proof,” data protection expert Christoph Schäfer told The Local.“The real winners of the cash limit are the control freaks in internal revenue who want as much transparency from citizens as possible. They could justify it as such but they don’t,” Schäfer argued.'Where does it end?'It is clear that Germans put a high value on individual liberty.CCTV is much more closely controlled than in Britain.Successive governments meanwhile have repeatedly attempted to pass a law enabling mobile phone companies to save call details. Two versions have been shot down by the highest court in the land. A third has passed into law but is yet to face the constitutional judges.This prizing of freedom, combined with a deeply ingrained thriftiness, meant that imposing a limit on hard currency was like playing with matches around a powder keg for German leaders.Polls consistently show that Germans prefer cash to cards - even if attitudes are slowly shifting - with people feeling they can keep a better overview of their expenses, and they can keep their shopping list away from the government and companies’ prying eyes.
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Topic: Are Germans right to fear limit on cash payments? (Read 199 times)
