Austria’s conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer wants the right to use cash enshrined in the constitution, he told Austrian media in remarks published on Friday (4 August), an idea the far-right Freedom Party has been pushing for years.
What’s wrong with the idea?
It’s a non-issue meant to deflect from real problems. It’s also summer, so there’s nothing going on and the news are blowing everything out of proportion.
Analysis of the whole thing (in German):
https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000181809/nehammer-findet-keinen-verbuendeten-fuer-bargeld-vorstoss
There is a lot going on in Austria. It’s just that it is climate change related floodings, and far-right people don’t like that kind of debate.
The intention.
Cash has many benefits over cards, like independence from electricity, privacy, accessibility and you don’t have to worry about wether or not a store accepts your cash (at least if you ignore currency meddling).
But the far right does not care about those things. They support the idea because of some NWO conspiracy bs and the law they would propose will probably have some specific details to reflect that, even if it’s just by ambiguity.
The ÖVP has adopted the FPÖ’s (far right’s) talking point but not the specific law AFAIK. Also, they would probably only pass the law with agreement from their green coalition partners. It might be possible for them to cooperate with the FPÖ in the Nationalrat to pass the FPÖ’s idea of the law, but that is extremely uncommon and would be very unpopular with the Greens. This is really only an issue for the next election in about one year.
