Germany's Anti-Immigration Party Takes Aim at the ECB
- `Master plan' to eliminate cash alleged by AfD's co-leader
- Attacks on euro, central banks as party meets for convention
A television crew films outside the European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters stand in Frankfurt, Germany, on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2014.
Photographer: Martin Leissl/BloombergGermany’s surging anti-immigration party isn’t just railing against asylum seekers. It’s also gunning for the European Central Bank, an alleged “master plan” to eliminate cash and negative deposit rates that it says amount to financial “repression.”
To Alternative for Germany, a proposal by the German Finance Ministry to limit cash transactions to 5,000 euros ($5,670) and ECB considerations to phase out the 500-euro note are more than measures aimed at curtailing criminal activity. They’re a first step in banning paper money and robbing helpless account holders of their privacy, according to Joerg Meuthen, the party’s co-chairman.