The EU asset register

Brussels plans total surveillance dictatorship

by Ulrich Schlüer*

For the Swiss Federal Council, the register decided upon by the EU to record all assets of EU residents and EU companies is a taboo subject that is strictly banned from all discussions. But the decision to introduce a comprehensive asset register has been passed in the EU. Its introduction will begin next year, i.e. in 2026.

All private assets on the one hand and all assets of legal entities on the other hand worth 200,000 euros (around 160,000 Swiss francs) or more must be entered in the EU asset register. In plain language: every owner of a single-family home, every company with a few not-so-cheap machines and devices or a commercial property will henceforth be monitored centrally from Brussels as wealthy individuals.

For this to be fully implemented, the EU headquarters in Brussels must be granted full access by all EU member states – treated as subject countries – to all national registers that allow conclusions to be drawn about existing assets.

AMLA: The EU supervisory authority

An Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) has been set up in Brussels as the EU registration authority, whose name is intended to convey that the asset registration system is being created to prevent illegal money laundering.

The AMLA is granted a right of control that suspends the privacy of all EU citizens and allows it to access all bank data – whereby all movements recorded on bank accounts in the last five years must be made available to the supervisory authority.

Furthermore, the AMLA is granted a right of control over all shareholdings of all citizens and companies in EU member states.

Similarly, the ownership of company shares, other shares, crypto assets and other assets by all residents of EU countries must be disclosed without reservation.

In addition, tangible assets such as cars, paintings, other works of art, jewellery, gold, other precious metals, stamps, yachts, etc. must be subject to complete AMLA registration. To this end, every EU country must – if Brussels so orders – create comprehensive registers of existing and potential tangible assets and keep them up to date.

Cash ban

The EU asset register also includes a general ban on cash payments exceeding €10,000. The sum of €10,000 is not set as a fixed upper limit for all time. Rather, the AMLA is expressly permitted to lower the upper limit for cash payments.

There is expressly no provision for an EU-guaranteed lower limit above zero. Brussels is clearly pursuing the goal of eliminating cash transactions altogether.

Green light for smear campaigns

Simply outrageous – and previously only used by dictatorships – is the EU regulation whereby Brussels expressly guarantees so-called “persons with legitimate interests” the right to inspect the central EU asset register.

“Persons with legitimate interests” are explicitly named: journalists, civil society organisations, NGOs (i.e. non-governmental organisations), universities, asset management companies and international organisations such as the OECD, the UN and others.

This does nothing less than open the floodgates to smear campaigns targeting alleged or actual wealthy individuals.

And this is being done by a supranational body such as the EU, which, as we know, does not shy away from repeatedly labelling itself as the defender of freedom and democracy in Europe.

Background: EU over-indebtedness

Brussels is desperately clinging to the idea that the asset register serves to combat illegal money laundering. No mention is made of the fact that several EU countries are seriously over-indebted, some of them even effectively bankrupt.

Nor is there any mention of the fact that the EU is currently announcing programmes – for infrastructure funds, for a comprehensive rearmament programme – that will cost trillions of euros in total. Yet the EU itself has no democratically agreed budget of its own. What Brussels announces is entirely borne by the EU member states – without their parliaments having any say in the matter. In reality, these exorbitant EU programmes merely add billions in additional debt to countries that are already heavily indebted. It really couldn't be any more dubious.

Attack on private assets

Since the AMLA is also expressly granted the right to block the accounts of wealthy individuals, it is safe to assume that Brussels will use the EU asset register to pave the way for the seizure of assets belonging to private individuals or legal entities.

This is especially true given that such a move has already been “tested” once within the EU in response to Cyprus’s excessive debt, which Brussels subsequently deemed a “success”. Confiscation took place when private assets deposited in banks were summarily stolen by the state, exceeding the amount of €100,000 – allegedly to pay off debts accumulated by the Cypriot state.

Fines

The minimum fines already listed in the asset register seem spectacular to citizens who might try to evade EU access to their assets. Private citizens face fines of one million euros or more for such violations. Companies face fines of ten million euros or more.

Everything is obviously subject to the motto: if you do not submit unreservedly to the will of Brussels, Brussels will destroy you by every means at its disposal.

Totalitarianism looms

Those who serve such intentions are creating totalitarianism in Europe.

When asked in Switzerland about the EU’s plans for the asset register, the EU’s most ardent supporters in particular are dismissive: Such a project is not part of the framework agreement that is currently intended to subject Switzerland to the EU.

That may well be true. Brussels, eager to get its hands on Switzerland’s still reasonably healthy public finances, does not want to alienate the Swiss. However, the framework agreement also explicitly contains a general provision stipulating that Switzerland must automatically adopt all new EU legislation that Brussels unilaterally declares to be “relevant to the internal market” – without a parliamentary decision or a referendum.

This automatic mechanism is provided for in the subjugation agreement. Anyone who expects Brussels not to make use of it when the EU, with all its highly indebted members, is given access to Swiss assets is undoubtedly living in a world of dreams.

Anyone who grants Brussels blanket powers is turning their country into a victim and an accomplice of the resulting blanket measures.

Brussels’ access to assets in Switzerland can only be prevented if the subjugation agreement is given the rejection it deserves.

* Dr. Ulrich Schlüer is a historian, publisher and former member of the National Council for the canton of Zurich. In 1979, he founded “Schweizerzeit”, a conservative magazine promoting independence, federalism and freedom, which continues to successfully serve its readership to this day.

Source: https://schweizerzeit.ch/bruessel-plant-die-totale-ueberwachungsdiktatur/, 14 November 2025

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)