The capital restraints in India and now also australia (working on getting rid of the 100 AUD notes) has been real in the EU for a while! I'm not sure why no one has been discussing the ban on the 500 euro note?? As of January 2017 it's still legal tender but in reality no stores or businesses will touch it, as draconian ECB rules makes banks return the notes to the ECB. Eventually (2018) you will only be able to tender the notes at central banks - with the joy of KYC checks, ID verification etc etc.

So why is no one reacting to the 500 euro note ban? Well, because the media, banks and government has been crying about its use for criminal activites for YEARS. Almost all statists in the EU I have discussed this with, automatically start blabbering about drug money. Well, actually the 500 note was built for ONE reason - the german government had a requirement for joining the euro! They wanted a note that matched the 1000 Deutschmark note because it was the most used note elderly people used for savings in germany. Especially the generation that could still remember the austerity years after world war II were prone to saving cash. Well - guess what - the german economy is as bankrupt as the rest of the EU now.

Of course the few articles in the european press that were proponents of the 500 euro note were shot down by the argument that people could just use the 200 euro note instead. Only downside was it would double the physical size of yoir money. Which makes it harder to move YOUR money across borders. Well - guess what - making tje movement of capital across borders harder - is precisely what capital restraints means..... oh - and they just started discussing killing off the 200 euro note now - because it statistically wasnt used much, yup, you guessed it - the statistics doesn't include 2017. Crazy world.