European Central Bank President Lagarde to step down early

Christine Lagarde will leave the post in February, nine months before the end of her eight-year term.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde says she will leave the post in February [Kirill Kudryavtse/AFP]

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde will step down months before her term ends, kicking off a race to succeed her against a turbulent backdrop in the eurozone.

Lagarde announced on Thursday that she will leave the post on February 7, about nine months before the scheduled end of her eight-year term. She said in a filmed statement posted on X that she was leaving “with a sense of good work done and an ECB that is fit for the future”.

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The move gives European Union leaders time to choose her successor before April’s French presidential election, which polls have suggested far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is favoured to win.

The timing could allow current European Council members, including French President Emmanuel Macron, to take part in appointing Lagarde’s successor before France’s vote.

Macron, who is not allowed to run again, thanked Lagarde in a post on X for “the determined action she led at the head of the European Central Bank” during “a period marked by numerous crises”.

“The transition at the head of the ECB must now be prepared in an orderly and balanced manner with our European partners,” the leader of the eurozone’s second-largest economy added.

However, Markus Ferber, a German member of the European Parliament, warned: “If the impression arises that such a departure is timed around national elections, it damages trust in an institution that must stand above any domestic political calculation.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, leader of the eurozone’s largest economy, said Lagarde had led the bank “with great aplomb during challenging times”, and European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen thanked Lagarde “for everything you have done for Europe and the euro”.

French Finance Minister Roland Lescure praised her tenure. “Christine Lagarde has been an exceptional President of the ECB. As Europe navigated through crises and difficult times, she brilliantly modernised and strengthened the institution,” he posted on social media.

Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Institute for Economic Research, told the Reuters news agency the early exit gives governments “an opportunity to appoint a successor who will safeguard European values and protect the ECB’s independence”.

Markets appeared unfazed. “Our view is that institutional behaviour is likely to outlast Lagarde and be quite similar, whoever takes over,” Simon Dangoor, head of fixed income macro investing at Goldman Sachs told Reuters.

Lagarde, appointed in October 2019, steered the bank through the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the United States-Israel war on Iran.

The ECB faced criticism for responding too slowly to the 2022 inflation surge, caused by post-pandemic supply chain bottlenecks and the war on Ukraine. Inflation is currently running at almost double the bank’s 2 percent target amid worries over France’s public finances.

A former French finance minister and head of the International Monetary Fund, Lagarde arrived in Frankfurt in 2019 as the first ECB chief with no formal economics training or central banking experience, prompting some market participants to warn of a “credibility risk”.

In March 2020 as the pandemic shook sovereign debt markets, she said the bank was not there to narrow the gap between Italian and German borrowing costs. She went on to show that political diplomacy could steer a central bank through historic shocks.

Sources told the AFP news agency that leaving early would give Lagarde “greater freedom to express her views”. She has hinted she could campaign in the French presidential race, saying a European voice was needed in the debate.

克里斯蒂娜·拉加德将于2月离任，比她8年任期结束提前9个月。

欧洲中央银行行长克里斯蒂娜·拉加德表示，她将于2月离任。[Kirill Kudryavtse/AFP]

欧洲中央银行行长克里斯蒂娜·拉加德将在任期结束前几个月卸任，这将在欧元区动荡的背景下引发一场继任者之争。

拉加德周四宣布，她将于2月7日离任，比原定八年任期结束时间提前约九个月。她在一段发布于X平台的视频声明中表示，她离开时“感到工作卓有成效，并且欧洲央行已做好迎接未来的准备”。

列表 1/3：欧洲中间派最终为其极端主义付出了代价。

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保加利亚在庆祝和对通货膨胀的担忧中采用欧元（共3条，此为第3条）

此举让欧盟领导人有时间在4月份法国总统大选前选出她的继任者，民调显示极右翼候选人玛丽娜·勒庞有望赢得大选。

这样的时间安排可以让包括法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙在内的现任欧洲理事会成员在法国投票之前参与任命拉加德的继任者。

马克龙已无权再次参选，他在 X 网站上发帖感谢拉加德在“欧洲中央银行行长任期内”所采取的“果断行动”，当时正值“危机频发的时期”。

“现在必须与我们的欧洲伙伴以有序、平衡的方式做好欧洲央行行长过渡的准备，”欧元区第二大经济体的领导人补充道。

然而，德国籍欧洲议会议员马库斯·费伯警告说：“如果给人留下这样的印象，即这种转变是为了配合国内选举，那么就会损害人们对一个必须凌驾于任何国内政治考量之上的机构的信任。”

德国总理、欧元区最大经济体德国的领导人弗里德里希·默茨表示，拉加德在充满挑战的时期“以极大的沉着冷静领导了央行”，欧盟主席乌尔苏拉·冯德莱恩感谢拉加德“为欧洲和欧元所做的一切”。

法国财政部长罗兰·莱斯库尔对她的任期给予了高度评价。他在社交媒体上发文称：“克里斯蒂娜·拉加德是一位杰出的欧洲央行行长。在欧洲经历危机和艰难时期之际，她出色地实现了欧洲央行的现代化和强化。”

德国经济研究所所长马塞尔·弗拉茨舍尔告诉路透社，提前退出让各国政府“有机会任命一位能够维护欧洲价值观并保护欧洲央行独立性的继任者”。

市场似乎并未受到影响。高盛固定收益宏观投资主管西蒙·丹古尔告诉路透社：“我们认为，无论谁接任，机构投资者的行为都可能在拉加德卸任后继续保持，并且非常相似。”

拉加德于 2019 年 10 月上任，带领该银行度过了 COVID-19 疫情、俄罗斯全面入侵乌克兰以及美国和以色列对伊朗的战争。

欧洲央行因应对2022年通胀飙升反应迟缓而饱受批评，这场通胀飙升是由疫情后供应链瓶颈和乌克兰战争造成的。目前，由于对法国公共财政的担忧，通胀率几乎是该行2%目标的两倍。

拉加德曾任法国财政部长和国际货币基金组织总裁，2019 年抵达法兰克福，成为首位没有接受过正规经济学培训或中央银行工作经验的欧洲央行行长，这引发了一些市场参与者对“信誉风险”的警告。

2020年3月，疫情冲击主权债务市场之际，她表示，央行并非旨在缩小意大利和德国之间的借贷成本差距。她随后指出，政治外交能够引导央行渡过历史性冲击。

消息人士告诉法新社，提前离任将使拉加德“拥有更大的表达自由”。她曾暗示可能会参加法国总统竞选，称这场辩论需要欧洲的声音。