Christine Lagarde will leave the presidency of the European Central Bank on February 7. The Eurogroup has about three months to choose her successor from several candidates.
Christine Lagarde will leave the presidency of the European Central Bank (ECB) on February 7, as officially announced. According to reports from elperiodico.com, her seven-year term was marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, the trade war with the United States, and conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, which caused two energy shocks in the eurozone. Upon her departure, inflation in the area stands at 3.8% as of the end of September.
The Eurogroup has three months to appoint Lagarde's successor. The agreement must be reached among the 21 member states of the eurozone, which will also need to fill two key vacancies in the institution.
The candidate with the most support is Pablo Hernández de Cos, former governor of the Bank of Spain and general director of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). According to Bloomberg, 57% of the economists surveyed believe he will be the next president of the ECB. The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, backed his candidacy a few weeks ago, and the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, also supports it.
His main rival is Klaas Knot, former president of the Central Bank of the Netherlands and former chair of the Financial Stability Board. Knot has the support of 42.8% of the economists surveyed by Bloomberg last week and the backing of the Dutch Prime Minister, Rob Jetten, who described him as:
“the ideal person for the position”
The PP and PSOE parties have 11 representatives in the European Parliament, compared to the four from the liberal group to which Jetten belongs, a weight that could prove decisive in the appointment.
There are other names on the list, although with fewer chances: the president of the Bundesbank, Joachim Nagel, and the governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panetta. The president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Nadia Calviño, was once considered but ruled out her candidacy to remain at the helm of the EIB.
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