cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683421
The EU has quietly imposed cash limits EU-wide:
- €3k limit on anonymous payments
- €10k limit regardless (link which also lists state-by-state limits).
From the jailed¹ article:
An EU-wide maximum limit of €10 000 is set for cash payments, which will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money.
It will also strip dignity and autonomy from non-criminal adults, you nannying assholes!
In addition, according to the provisional agreement, obliged entities will need to identify and verify the identity of a person who carries out an occasional transaction in cash between €3 000 and €10 000.
The hunt for “money launderers” and “terrorists” is not likely meaningfully facilitated by depriving the privacy of people involved in small €3k transactions. It’s a bogus excuse for empowering a police surveillance state. It’s a shame how quietly this apparently happened. No news or chatter about it.
¹ the EU’s own website is an exclusive privacy-abusing Cloudflare site inaccessible several demographics of people. Sad that we need to rely on the website of a US library to get equitable access to official EU communication.
update
The Pirate party’s reaction is spot on. They also point out that cryptocurrency is affected. Which in the end amounts to forced banking.
#warOnCash
You’re going pretty far calling all(?) influential EU politicians “mafia tools” whose deeds will not be investigated. I see that there’s a certain lobbyist influence and surely a bunch of other corruption, affecting a number of politicians. But there’s a lot less actual mafia influence and scandals are in fact uncovered regularly.
UvdL is an obvious mafia tool, Borrell too, Ylva Johansson is connected to a few things with clearly negative effect, that chat control of theirs included, and Kaja Kallas is a not too remote relative of Anton Vaino, who is the head of Russia’s AP, and I’ve read they are not on bad terms.
But there’s a lot less actual mafia influence and scandals are in fact uncovered regularly.
Which would make sense with more mafia influence, not less.
I am still unclear on your definition of mafia. Do you count every lobbyist as “mafia”?
But there’s a lot less actual mafia influence and scandals are in fact uncovered regularly.
Which would make sense with more mafia influence, not less.
I’ll try to illustrate what I mean and I’ll also use examples of how the term “mafia” is usually used:
- In Italy, the Italian mafia, while still strong, has been getting weaker because connections were uncovered and legal cases were won.
- In Germany, the Italian mafia has been getting stronger because a lot of politicians thought that it’s not an issue if there are more Italian restaurants and more Italians owning homes, even though both are connected to mafia money.
Prosecution usually means the judicial system is working. E.g., OLAF prosecuting the head of Frontex is imo a good sign, not a bad one. (Also, no, that guy isn’t “mafia”, he’s just corrupt.)
No, I count Ilham Aliyev and Anton Vaino and Putin and Lukashenko as mafia. For European politicians connected to them - in the general meaning of the word, as in abusing their posts to help criminals kill people. For example, in Artsakh.
Italian mafia I actually consider beneficial against such people.
