Joana Cotar: Bald kommst du nicht mehr aus Deutschland raus (schon beschlossen)

Summary

Former Bundestag member Joana Cotar argues that emigrating no longer necessarily ends a person’s exposure to German or European state systems. The central question, she says, is not only where someone lives, but which institutions control their money, identity, businesses, and ability to transact.

Cotar opens with a personal example: her business bank gave her 30 days to find another provider. She says her former parliamentary role left her listed as a politically exposed person in compliance databases, and that her political profile may also have contributed. She presents the incident as an example of how banks and other private firms can restrict access to financial services without a court proceeding.

Emigration and state oversight

Cotar frames emigration as a form of market competition: people can leave a country if they dislike its taxes, rules, or protections. She argues that governments often respond not by improving their offer, but by harmonizing rules and making it harder for people to move assets or escape oversight. She also criticizes exit taxation, which she says can apply to unrealized gains when someone leaves.

A major part of her argument concerns the gradual expansion of government access to data. She describes account-information systems and international financial reporting as measures that began with limited purposes and were later extended to more authorities and uses. In her view, laws are often expanded incrementally, with the changes attracting little public attention.

Cotar says states increasingly rely on banks, payment firms, exchanges, and digital platforms to enforce compliance, giving governments indirect control over financial “bottlenecks.” She argues that digital infrastructure makes geographic distance less protective than it once was: data can follow people, and financial services remain subject to regulation across borders.

Digital identity, the digital euro, and crypto reporting

Cotar warns that digital identity wallets and a digital euro could deepen dependence on shared systems. She says the EU is due to require member states to provide a digital identity wallet by the end of 2026. Her concern is that convenient systems may become difficult to avoid once widely adopted, and that their uses could expand beyond their original functions—even if current safeguards or assurances rule out particular forms of monitoring or programmability.

She also discusses crypto reporting requirements. Cotar says DAC8 will require EU crypto-service providers to collect information on users’ transactions from 2026, with the first reports due to reach Germany’s Federal Central Tax Office in 2027. She presents this, along with international information-sharing frameworks, as part of a broader shift toward routine data collection rather than investigations triggered only by suspicion.

Cotar’s recommendations

Cotar recommends examining three forms of “residence”:

• Physical residence — where a person lives.
• Tax residence — where they are considered resident for tax purposes.
• Economic residence — where their company, accounts, customers, and essential services are based.

She urges people to avoid relying on a single jurisdiction or institution and to retain control over at least some assets without needing third-party approval. She presents self-custodied Bitcoin as one possible way to reduce dependence on banks and national payment systems, while acknowledging the risk of losing private keys.

Cotar concludes that emigration alone is not enough if a person’s financial and digital infrastructure remains dependent on the same institutions. She also argues that emigrants should remain politically engaged rather than leaving behind the people who challenge government power. Her closing advice is to assess all three forms of residence, diversify legal and economic dependencies, and investigate how the destination country may adopt international rules.

Presenters and contributors named

• Joana Cotar — featured speaker
• Carlos AG Bauer — announced as the next speaker
• Ivan Buwa — mentioned as a forthcoming speaker
• Kat Klein — referenced by Cotar in connection with lost Bitcoin seed phrases