FRANKFURT — The race to replace Christine Lagarde has reached fever pitch after she officially announced her intention to depart the European Central Bank in February next year. The two leading contenders are familiar figures from the eurozone’s central banking circuit: Spain’s Pablo Hernández de Cos, a measured economist with a reputation for quiet authority, and Dutchman Klaas Knot, a former hawk whose years on the ECB’s governing council left a more complicated legacy. A recent Bloomberg survey of economists gives de Cos a slender lead: 12 respondents picked him, against nine for Knot.
The survey offers a snapshot of expert preferences, not a forecast of the outcome. EU leaders will make the appointment, with national claims and other ECB vacancies likely to shape negotiations. The choices will also be influenced by horse trading over what will likely be a package deal with the opportunity to fill the two executive board seats that will be vacant in January and May.
An economist with a Ph.D. from the University of Madrid, de Cos joined the Bank of Spain in 1997, moved to Frankfurt in 2004 to be an adviser to the ECB’s executive board, before returning to the Spanish central bank. He rose through the ranks to become governor, serving from 2018 to 2024. In this role he restored the Bank of Spain’s reputation after a series of missteps before and during the financial crisis.
His achievement was implicitly acknowledged by his appointment to two terms as chair of the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision, the global standard-setter for bank regulation. He now runs the Bank for International Settlements, the institution often described as the central bankers’ central bank. His style is low-key: a modest dove, meaning that he is more attentive than hawks to growth and employment alongside inflation.
Still, when inflation surged in 2022, de Cos backed the ECB’s shift toward higher rates. Equally, he has little time for governments that put off essential pension system reforms, having published a sharp critique of the Pedro Sanchez government while at the Bank of Spain. De Cos has long been groomed by Lagarde’s predecessor Mario Draghi, whose voice continues to carry a heavy weight in European economic debates and may influence the preference of some countries as they mull who to place at the top of the Frankfurt institution.
As France faces mounting debt pressures, de Cos’ experience as a senior Bank of Spain economist during the eurozone crisis could convince EU governments that he is the best fit. Galo Nuño, vice dean and professor of economics at IE University and a former alternate member of the ECB governing council, called it “a huge advantage.” The political arithmetic, however, could work against the Spaniard. France is keen to secure the role of the ECB chief economist, which becomes vacant in May 2027.
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