Frankfurt/Main. Who will succeed Christine Lagarde as head of the European Central Bank? The heads of state and government of the 21 euro states must find a solution soon, because the Frenchwoman has already announced her resignation on February 7th, almost nine months before the end of her regular term of office at the end of October 2027.
Now there is a duel between the Dutchman Klaas Knot and the Spaniard Pablo Hernández de Cos. Both were nominated as successors to the ECB presidency. There should be an inventory of the applications at the Eurogroup meeting on Monday. So far no nomination has been received from Germany. But Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) also want to get involved in personal poker.
The Spaniard Pablo Hernández de Cos has been running the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel since July 1, 2025, in a sense the central bank of central banks. He was previously head of the Spanish central bank (2018-2024) and in this role a member of the Governing Council of the ECB. Hernández de Cos is seen as a representative of a more loose monetary policy with lower interest rates.
The 55-year-old holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Madrid. He also has degrees in business administration and law. His career began in 1997 at the Spanish Central Bank, where he joined the Monetary and Financial Studies Department as a senior economist.
In 2004, Hernández de Cos came to Frankfurt as an advisor to the ECB Executive Board, and in 2007 he returned to the Spanish Central Bank and took over the management of the economic policy unit in the Department of Economic Analysis and Forecasts. In 2015 he was appointed Director General for Economics, Statistics and Research.
Three years later he was promoted to head of the Spanish central bank. “In this role, he managed to restore the reputation of the Spanish central bank after a series of missteps before and during the financial crisis,” writes the news portal “Politico”.
What speaks for Hernández de Cos is that Spain has never held the presidency since the ECB was founded, says VP Bank chief economist Thomas Gitzel. The Spaniard had previously attracted attention with his tone for a loose monetary policy: “A moderate monetary politician is likely to be preferred by many governments at the moment.”
The Dutchman Klaas Knot (59) was president of the Dutch central bank for 14 years - from July 2011 to June 2025. He stands for a tight monetary policy: In the ECB Council he openly opposed the at times very loose monetary policy and is therefore in line with the Bundesbank. From December 2021 to July 2025, Knot served as chairman of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), which is tasked with identifying vulnerabilities in the global financial system, making suggestions for eliminating them and monitoring their implementation.
Before his appointment to the top of the Dutch Central Bank, Knot held several positions at the central bank, worked at the Pensions and Insurance Supervisory Authority (December 2002 to April 2004) and temporarily moved to the Dutch Ministry of Finance: from 2009 to 2011 he was Deputy Treasurer General and Director of Financial Markets.
Nagel (60), who has led the Bundesbank since January 2022, was not nominated by the deadline on Friday. As the largest economy in Europe, Germany has never had the position of ECB President - and it is likely to stay that way. So far there are no signs that Chancellor Merz supports a change from SPD member Nagel. The biggest obstacle for the economist with a doctorate was that Ursula von der Leyen's EU Commission was already in German hands. Two Germans at the top of important institutions in Europe - that's difficult to convey in the personal poker in Brussels.
Since not only Lagarde's position will soon be vacant, but also that of ECB board member Isabel Schnabel and chief economist Philip R. Lane, a whole personnel package needs to be negotiated at the European level.
Germany is likely to campaign for a German successor to Schnabel, who is moving to the IMF in January. In the ECB's executive board, she was responsible, among other things, for market operations and thus the concrete implementation of monetary policy. Economists Tobias Adrian and Markus Brunnermeier as well as Bundesbank Vice President Sabine Mauderer are considered candidates to succeed Schnabel.
Germany will probably have to deal with competition from France. President Emmanuel Macron's government would reportedly support Dutchman Knot as Lagarde's successor - assuming the next ECB chief economist comes from France. This would open up a political tug of war between the heavyweights of the Eurozone.
