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by arp242 816 days ago
> More than 90% of responding citizens spoke out against such a step.

It was a web survey with fairly low numbers: 30,317 in total, which is very little for all of the EU.[1]

And of course the results of this will be biased towards people who object to this. If there had been a meaningful number of respondents then it might be a signal of sorts, but as it stands with 28,784 people protesting this is completely meaningless. You can find those numbers on almost any proposal.

Never mind the responses are almost exclusively from France, Germany, and Austria. All of Ireland is represented by just 14 people. Netherlands 26. Etc.

> According to an ECB survey up to 10% of citizens use cash even for amounts greater than 10.000 € (e.g. buying cars)

I can't find this survey. I can find some ECB surveys about cash, but nothing that confirms this. The phrasing "up to" makes me suspicious, especially since the previous claim is already a misrepresentation.

Also note that buying a car is rarely anonymous as it is, because registration and/or insurance is usually mandatory. I don't think there are EU members where this is not the case?

[1]: https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2017-07/st...

2 comments

I'm Irish, usually pretty clued in on things. But had no idea this was actually being put through. (I suspected it would be eventually) I would definitely be objecting.
Sure. And maybe a majority of EU citizens would object. But that survey doesn't prove anything of the sort, and therefore is not worth quoting, and it's a bad look that it is, because the way the article phrased it now is misleading. Let's be real: 28,784 people objecting to a law in an online survey is a failed protest. A spectacular failure. Such a failure that I would not have cited it at all. Calling this "a great public outcry" is such a misrepresentation that I find it hard to not just call it a brazen lie.

And it also means I can't really trust this person, because if he's misrepresenting this, then what else is he misrepresenting? ---

For what it's worth, personally I don't really object to reasonably limits but feel this should be up to the member states and not the EU, so I would object to this EU law. Ireland already has the requirement for a check for cash payments over €10k for example. That seems fine to me.

When it comes to laws details matter, as the recent Irish referenda showed. Not many people really objected to the general idea of the thing, but they did against the specifics. The specifics for what makes sense can differ per member state, and opinions differ quite a lot by member state as well. What makes sense in Germany may not make sense in Bulgaria.

National threshold can be lower. France has banned cash payments over 1000 EUR.