Spain’s de Cos and the Dutchman Knot: who are the two economists in the running to succeed Lagarde at the ECB?

Christine Lagarde will step down as President of the ECB on 7 February 2027, and the President of the European Council, António Costa, has announced that the process to select her successor begins today.

The first of the two candidates is Pablo Hernández de Cos, aged 55, who joined the Bank of Spain in 1997 and went on to serve as its governor from 2018 to 2024. During that same period, from 2019 to 2024, he also served as chairman of the Basel Committee, the body through which supervisory authorities set standards for bank capital. Since July 2025, he has headed the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), informally known as the central bank of central banks. Reuters describes him as a “moderate dove”, and his colleagues regard him as a pragmatic economist who uses data to support his positions whilst avoiding dogma. In January, when the US Department of Justice, under the Trump administration, launched a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, it was he who rallied the governors of various central banks behind a statement of “full solidarity” with the former Fed Chair – an initiative spearheaded by the outgoing Lagarde. He would be the first Spanish ECB president: Spain’s former Finance Minister, Luis de Guindos, who was at the ECB until recently, served as vice-president (he was replaced in June by the Croatian Boris Vujčić). 

The other is Klaas Knot, a 59-year-old Dutchman who led his central bank from 2011 to 2025. He opposed the monetary stimulus measures introduced under Mario Draghi’s presidency, whilst during Lagarde’s term he appears to have shown himself to be more inclined towards compromise. Initially sceptical even of Draghi’s ‘whatever it takes’ approach, he later recognised its importance. A French official, quoted by Reuters, described him as ‘a hawk, but an intelligent one’. However, there is already another Dutch member on the ECB’s Executive Board: Frank Elderson, whose term expires in 2028. 

The choice of president, in fact, is intertwined with the other vacancies on the ECB’s Governing Council. Germany’s Isabel Schnabel will leave the Executive Board on 3 January to join the International Monetary Fund, and German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil has already stated that Berlin will put forward a German candidate. The ECB’s Chief Economist, Ireland’s Philip Lane, will also step down by May. France has its sights set on that post: according to Reuters, the French government is reportedly prepared to back the Dutch candidate Knot in exchange for a French chief economist at the ECB. If, on the other hand, the Spaniard de Cos were to become ECB President, the role of chief economist would almost certainly go to a ‘frugal’ country from the North, as maintaining political balance on the Governing Council is essential (France, Germany and Italy effectively always have a permanent seat – or even two, if the Single Supervisory Mechanism is taken into account – as was the case with Andrea Enria and Mario Draghi).