Pablo Hernandez de Cos and Klaas Knot oppose each other to chair the ECB

Discussions between euro zone member states to choose the next president of the European Central Bank (ECB) got to the heart of the matter on Monday, November 9, in Brussels. At the Eurogroup meeting, the Spanish and Dutch finance ministers each promoted their candidate. There are only two in the running: Pablo Hernandez de Cos, supported by Madrid, and Klaas Knot, defended by The Hague. One of them must replace Christine Lagarde, who announced that she would leave her post on February 7, 2027.

According to Le Monde, Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, discussed this weekend the succession of Christine Lagarde at the head of the European Central Bank. The heads of state and government must decide between the Spanish and Dutch candidates and choose two other members of the board.

The president of the Eurogroup, Greece's Kyriakos Pierrakakis, told the press: "We have received two excellent applications." He specified: “We have a tight timetable ahead of us to make this choice” and “the ambition is to complete the entire process by the end of the year”.

Pablo Hernandez de Cos, former governor of the Bank of Spain and current president of the Bank for International Settlements, benefits from the strong support of Madrid. Carlos Cuerpo, the Spanish Minister of Economy, underlined, while presenting "his" candidate: "His hand does not tremble, but he has always shown himself capable of building compromises, and he has very solid economic and technical experience."

Facing him, Klaas Knot, former governor of the Bank of the Netherlands, is defended by The Hague. His Dutch counterpart, Eelco Heinen, praised the “impressive CV” of Klaas Knot, who “has proven himself in his various functions, notably as an international crisis manager. He weathered the euro crisis”.

According to Le Monde, in the presidential race, Paris could support Pablo Hernandez de Cos, opposed to Klaas Knot.

Machine-translated from French