The European Central Bank (ECB) to decide on Wednesday the fate of the 500 euro note …
The probable disappearance of this big banknote, raises the ire of some countries, including Germany. Purple colour and slightly larger than its little brother, the 500 euro will be on the menu at a meeting in the afternoon of the Governing Council of the ECB.
It comes of no surprise that the ECB should decide to halt any new issue of this banknote, which is accused of allowing the transport of large amounts of cash discreetly and thereby facilitate the circulation of dirty money, corruption and the financing of illegal activities. “The € 500 banknote is more used to conceal than to buy “, said in French Finance Minister Michel Sapin in February.
Fight against Terrorist Financing
This decision is expected when the EU decided to reinforce its fight against terrorist financing, in particular the pressure from France. The European Commission said in early February will “work with the ECB and all relevant parties to see if a specific action on it (was) necessary”. The possible disappearance of this banknote is however seen with suspicion by a number of countries, including Germany and Austria, which fear that this decision is a first step towards the complete disappearance of physical money and the emergence of a surveillance society where all financial transactions would be exposed to prying eyes of the authorities in most other countries in the eurozone, this issue seems to leave observers and largely indifferent people.
the end of the “bin Laden”?
The “bin Laden” – the nickname given to 500 euro notes, because people talk about it but have never seen one. The 500 euro note represents only 3% of the number of euro banknotes in circulation but is 28% of their total value, according to ECB statistics. Several experts expressed reservations about the effectiveness of the measure in the fight against crime. “representatives of organized crime are not idiots, money laundering has long been mainly through fictitious companies, and now in the cloud” and recently stated in the press by Friedrich Schneider, underground economy expert at the University of Linz in Austria.
At the time of the birth of the euro – the coins and notes began on 1 January 2002 – is under pressure, among others, Germany attaches great importance to the large notes, as before the euro, their highest value note was a value of 1,000 deutschmarks roughly equivalent, of the 500 euro note.
