EN 
 
 
 OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK 
of 30 April 2010 
on a draft law on restoring fairness in taxation and addressing tax evasion 
(CON/2010/36) 
 
Introduction and legal basis  
On 26 March 2010 the European Central Bank (ECB) received a request from the Greek Ministry of 
Finance for an opinion on a draft law on restorin g fairness in taxation and addressing tax evasion 
(hereinafter the ‘draft law’). 
The ECB’s competence to deliver an opinion is based on Articles 127(4) and 282(5) of the Treaty on the 
Functioning of the European Union and the second and fifth indents of Article 2(1) of Council Decision 
98/415/EC of 29 June 1998 on the consultation of the European Central Bank by national authorities 
regarding draft legislative provisions1, as the draft law relates to means of payment and payment and 
settlement systems. In accordance w ith the first sentence of Article 17. 5 of the Rules of Procedure of the 
European Central Bank, the Governing Council has adopted this opinion. 
 
1.  Purpose of the draft law Among other things, the draft law is intended to pr ogressively establish the use of electronic invoices. 
Article 20 of the draft law introduces specific restri ctions on cash payments in favour of other means of 
payment, in order to ensure the genuineness of transactions and underlying documents and to enable direct cross-checking of such transactions. 
Article 20(2) of the draft law states that, for transa ctions between businesses, invoices and equivalent 
documents with a value exceeding EUR 3 000 shall be paid through business bank accounts or by 
cheques drawn on and paid to such accounts. These accounts will be connected to a secure electronic 
database held by the Ministry of Finance’s General Secretariat for Information Systems (GSIS). Banking secrecy is lifted for this purpose and banks may not charge fees for the operation of such business 
accounts. 
                                                     
 
1 OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42. 
2 Under Article 20(3) of the draft law, invoices with a value exceeding EUR 1 500 for the sale of goods or 
services to consumers shall be paid through a bank with  debit cards, credit cards or cheques, and the use 
of cash will not be allowed. 
 
2.  General observations 2.1  Consultation at an appropriate stage  
 The Government submitted the draft law to the Greek Parliament on 24 March 2010. The Ministry 
of Finance consulted the ECB on 26 March 2010, requesting that the opinion be given as early as possible. The draft law was adopted by the Gree k Parliament on 20 April 2010. In cases of 
particular urgency that do not allow for a normal  consultation period, the consulting authority may 
indicate urgency in the consultation request and ask for a shorter time limit for the ECB’s opinion 
to be adopted. This does not alter the national auth orities’ duty under Articles 127(4) and 282(5) of 
the Treaty to consult the ECB on draft legislative provisions falling within its fields of competence in due course of the legislative process. The second sentence of Article 4 of Decision 98/415/EC, 
states that the ECB must be consulted ‘at an appr opriate stage’ in the legislative process. This 
implies that the consultation should take place at a point in the legislative process which affords the 
ECB sufficient time to examine the draft legislative provisions and to adopt its opinion in all required language versions, and which enables the relevant national authorities to take the ECB’s 
opinion into consideration before the provisions are adopted. Article 3(4)  of Decision 98/415/EC 
also obliges Member States to suspend the ad option process for draft legislative provisions, 
pending receipt of the ECB’s opinion. In the present case, the consulting authority did not give the ECB a specific time limit within which to submit its opinion and referred only to urgency on the 
grounds that Parliament would probably enact the draft law within two weeks from the date of its 
submission. As the circumstances invoked by the consulting authority do not constitute sufficient 
reason to justify extreme urgency, the ECB consid ers that the minimum consultation period of one 
month provided for in Article 3(1) of Decision 98/415/EC applies.  
2.2 Consistency of the draft law 
2.2.1 According to the draft law’s explanatory memorandum, from 1 January 2011: (i) invoices for 
transactions between businesses or between businesses and the State with a value exceeding 
EUR 3 000 will only be acceptable if submitted el ectronically, and (ii) cash payments between 
businesses or between business es and consumers with a value exceeding EUR 1 500 will be 
considered illegal. However, the provisions of the draft law,
 i.e. Articles 20(2)-(3), do not clarify 
the legal consequences of non-compliance with the rules. In addition, in Article 20(3) it appears 
that the EUR 1 500 threshold only applies to the sale  of goods or services to consumers, and it is 
not explicitly stated that such transactions will be  considered illegal. Moreove r, the draft legislative 
provisions do not give any date for their entry into force. 
3 2.2.2 For reasons of legal certainty, the ECB recommends  that the draft law should  be consistent with its 
explanatory memorandum. 
2.3  Limitations  on payments in cash   
2.3.1 With regard to restrictions on payments in cash under Union law, recital 19 of Council Regulation 
(EC) No 974/98 of 3 May 1998 on the introduction of the euro2 states that ‘limitations on payments 
in notes and coins, established by Member States for public reasons, are not incompatible with the 
status of legal tender of euro banknotes and co ins, provided that other lawful means for the 
settlement of monetary debts are available’. The third sentence of Article 11 of Regulation (EC) 
No 974/98 states: ‘Except for the issuing authority and for those persons specifically designated by the national legislation of the issuing Member State,  no party shall be obliged to accept more than 
50 coins in any single payment’. 
2.3.2 A prohibition of payments in cash of a certain value does not affect the legal tender status of 
banknotes
3 and is compatible with Union law4. However, in view of the legal tender status of euro 
banknotes, the ECB should be consulted on the proposed adoption of any similar measures, as such 
prohibitions should be subject to individual examination of the specific requirements and purposes 
of the legislative provision in each case. In this  respect, the ECB, acknowledging that the draft 
legislative provisions are in principle compatib le with Union law, has the following specific 
observations. 
 
3.  Specific observations 3.1 As referred to in paragraph 2.3.1 above, limitati ons on payments in banknotes and coins established 
by Member States for public reasons are not incomp atible with the status of legal tender of euro 
banknotes and coins, provided other lawful means for the settlement of monetary debts are available. The ECB acknowledges that: (i) lawful me ans for the settlement of monetary debts, other 
than cash, are available in Greece; and (ii) ensuring the genuineness of transactions and underlying 
documents and enabling direct cross-checking of  such transactions, as referred to in the 
explanatory memorandum to the draft law, qua lify as public reasons within the meaning of 
Regulation (EC) No 974/98
5. 
3.2 However, limitations on payments by euro banknotes and coins should be proportionate to the 
objectives pursued and should not go beyond what is necessary to achieve such objectives. The 
                                                      
2  OJ L 139, 11.5.1998, p. 1. 
3  The legal tender status of euro banknotes is laid down by Article 128(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European 
Union and Article 16 of the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank. 
4  See paragraph 5 of Opinion CON/2002/2 4. All ECB opinions are published on the ECB’s website at www.ecb.europa.eu. 
5  ‘According to settled case-law, reliance by a national authority on the concept of public policy presupposes the existence 
… of a genuine and sufficiently serious threat to a fundamental interest of society’, Case C-349/06 Polat  [2007] ECR I-
167, paragraph 34. 
4 ECB considers that the proposed thresholds of EUR 3 000 for business-to-business transactions (or 
between businesses and the State) and of EUR 1 500 for transactions for the sale of goods or services by businesses to consumers will effectively be limitations on cash payments. Any impact 
of the proposed limitations should be carefully weig hed against the public benefits expected to be 
derived from them. The ECB suggests that the competent authorities should assess whether the 
effects of these measures go beyond what is necessary for achieving the objective of ensuring the genuineness of transactions and underlying documents and the direct cross-checking of such 
transactions, taking also into consideration the need to ensure an appropriate level of consumer 
protection
6. 
3.3 Finally, the draft law gives rise to a risk of lega l uncertainty in the light of Article 452 of the Greek 
Penal Code on ‘refusal of cash’, according to which ‘Any person who refuses to accept payment in 
cash legally introduced into circulation within th e State shall be punished with a fine’. In this 
context, the ECB stresses the need to amend the dr aft law in order to ensure the consistency of the 
legal provisions governing the restrictions on payments in cash. 
 
This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website.  
 
Done at Frankfurt am Main, 30 April 2010. 
  
[signed]  
 
The President of the ECB 
Jean-Claude TRICHET 
                                                      
6  As far as consumer protection is concerned, Article 169 of the Tr eaty requires such a high level of protection to be ensured. 
It may be argued that restrictions on payments by cash, such as those provided for in the draft law, should differ between 
those applicable to business-to-business transactions, where the parties are deemed to have equivalent negotiating power, 
and those applicable to business-to-consumer transactions, where cash should not be refused unless the business can give 
restrictively defined and objective reasons. In this respect s ee the Report of the Euro Legal Tender Expert Group (ELTEG) 
on the definition, scope and effects of lega l tender of euro banknotes and coins, S ection 2.1.2. Acceptanc e/refusal of cash, 
available at: www.ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/articles/euro/documents/elteg_en.pdf. See also Commission 
recommendation of 22 March 2010 on the scope and effects of legal tender of euro banknotes and coins (OJ L 83, 
30.3.2010, p. 70), paragraph 2, whereby ‘The acceptance of euro banknotes and coins as means of payments in retail 
transactions should be the rule. A refusal thereof should be possible only if grounded on reasons related to the “good faith principle” (for example the retailer has no change available)’.