{"id":27730,"date":"2026-03-08T18:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T18:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/27730\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T18:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T18:09:07","slug":"swiss-vote-places-right-to-use-cash-in-countrys-constitution-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/27730\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss vote places right to use cash in country\u2019s constitution \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Swiss Federal Council member Karin Keller-Sutter unveiled the results<\/a> at a press conference Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

The vote means Switzerland will join the likes of Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia, which have already written the right to cold, hard cash in their constitutions. Austrian politicians are also debating whether to follow suit, as people’s payment habits become increasingly digital<\/a> \u2014 especially since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The trend has fanned Big Brother conspiracy theories that governments aim to control populations by withdrawing cash altogether. The European Central Bank’s plans to issue a virtual extension of the euro have fanned<\/a> those fears, prompting the EU\u2019s executive arm to propose a bill<\/a> that will cement physical cash in societies across the bloc.<\/p>\n

Switzerland, too, has seen a drop in cash payments over the past decade. More than seven out of 10 payments at the till were in cash in 2017. In 2024, cash only featured in 30 percent of in-shop transactions, according to data<\/a> from the Swiss National Bank.<\/p>\n

The Swiss Freedom Movement has previously pursued campaigns to sack unpopular government ministers<\/a>, ban electronic voting<\/a>, and protect citizens from professional or social retribution<\/a> if they refuse to be vaccinated against Covid-19 \u2014 none of which made it to the ballot box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swiss Federal Council member Karin Keller-Sutter unveiled the results at a press conference Sunday evening. The vote means…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[4922,8609,16788,16789,16790,16791,8306,16792,2564,10111,3310,41,17],"class_list":["post-27730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-currency","tag-digital-currencies","tag-economic-governance","tag-economic-performance","tag-european-monetary-union","tag-finance-and-banking","tag-financial-stability","tag-financial-technology","tag-monetary-policy","tag-payments","tag-regulation","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116194899775328167","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}