its always to fight corruption and trafficing right?
I can't speak for all of EU, but here in Austria tax evasion is very common.
For example, it's still extremely common to pay contractors under the table. They will ask you if you need an invoice, and the price will be a lot lower if you don't.
Another example are restaurants. For a few years it has been required that restaurants always provide you with a receipt, but especially asian restaurants still don't do so.
All that untaxed revenue costs the state billions in missing taxes.
If you limit cash payments, then you make it at least slightly harder for someone to eg. buy a car with that untaxed money.
I really don't see any reason why you would need 10k€ cash payments if not for tax evasion.
To avoid banking fees?
"Oh lultimouomo", you say, "the were transfer might be nominally free but sure having a bank has other costs involved". No fixed cost, yrgulation, so by the very fact of having a bank account, depositing money in it and taking it back by wire transfer or ATM you are never paying a fee. Also, cash has a cost. You risk being mugged, you risk getting a wrong change by the cashier, the store risks a robbery / break in (and most often pays expensive insurance to protect itself against this)
With the current inflation €10.000 will be worth far less in the near future, and I'm certain the amount won't be updated yearly to account for that. This 10k "magic number" has stayed the same for a long time. This isn't about money laundering as much as about control over even relatively low value cash transactions.
> There are two types of retail CBDCs. They differ in how individual users access and use their currency: // Token-based retail CBDCs are accessible with private/public keys. This method of validation allows users to execute transactions anonymously // Account-based retail CBDCs require digital identification to access an account // The two types of CBDCs, wholesale and retail, are not mutually exclusive[ - i]t is possible to develop both and have them function in the same economy
Pretty important, because currently having anonymous electronic transaction is heavily difficult.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/central-bank-digital-cu...
(I understand in this tree the '/S' is taken for granted.)