Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has proposed enshrining the right to use cash in the country’s constitution, citing increasing concern that cash could be restricted as a means of payment. His office has stated that the uncertainty is driven by mixed messages and reports.
Nehammer believes that people in Austria should have the right to pay with cash, which is still more popular than in many other places. To this end, he has tasked Finance Minister Magnus Brunner with the task of drafting a constitutional protection of cash as a payment method, and to ensure a steady supply of cash in cooperation with Austria’s central bank.
The Freedom Party leader Herbert Kickl has accused Nehammer of stealing his party’s ideas, while the biggest opposition party, the Social Democrats, have called for at least one ATM in every municipality and labelled Nehammer’s proposal as “pure populism”. Philip Kucher, the head of the Social Democrat Parliamentary Group, noted that “even if we write the word ‘cash’ into the constitution 100 times, there won’t be a single ATM more in Austria”.
