Former central bank chiefs from the Netherlands and Spain have been confirmed as the sole candidates to succeed Christine Lagarde as president of the European Central Bank (ECB). Eurozone finance ministers were due to take stock of the two nominations at a Eurogroup meeting in Brussels today.
Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis, who opened the nomination process after Lagarde announced her early exit, said on November 6 that two candidacies had arrived by the deadline.
Lagarde, 70, said on October 29 she would step down on February 7, 2027, almost nine months before her term was due to end. She told reporters she wanted to be freed from the political neutrality the job demands, saying: “I don’t think that I can be comfortable in that neutrality at the present time.”
Her early departure gives EU leaders the chance to pick a successor while French President Emmanuel Macron remains in office. Polls cited by Reuters suggest Marine Le Pen of National Rally (RN) is the favourite to win the presidential election due in April and May 2027.
Jean-Philippe Tanguy of RN told Reuters the move showed contempt for the rule of law. German MEP Markus Ferber of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), who sits on the European Parliament committee that will vet the nominee, said it sent the wrong signal amid high inflation and nervous bond markets.
Knot, 59, led De Nederlandsche Bank from 2011 to 2025 and is regarded as a policy hawk. If appointed, he would be the second Dutch ECB president after Wim Duisenberg, who held the post from 1998 to 2003.
Hernández de Cos, 55, governed the Bank of Spain from 2018 to 2024 and has run the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel since July 2025. Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Carlos Cuerpo backed his candidacy in a letter to Pierrakakis, echoing support from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Nomura economist Andrzej Szczepaniak noted that Spain, unlike the Netherlands, had never provided an ECB president. Modupe Adegbembo of Jefferies said “Knot is seen as slightly more hawkish and de Cos slightly more dovish”.
The presidency is expected to form part of a wider package of ECB jobs. Isabel Schnabel is leaving the Executive Board in January to join the International Monetary Fund, while the term of chief economist Philip Lane is due to end on May 31, 2027.
The Council of the European Union must back a candidate by a reinforced qualified majority of eurozone states before the European Parliament and the ECB are consulted. The European Council makes the final appointment.
Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank, said EU leaders would likely seek agreement on all three posts before their summit on December 17-18.
