Hernández de Cos and Knot are the two candidates to succeed Lagarde at the ECB

Spain's Pablo Hernández de Cos, who heads the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and former Dutch central bank president Klaas Knot are the only candidates to succeed Christine Lagarde as president of the European Central Bank (ECB), according to a statement by Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis. Nominations closed on November 6, and euro-area finance ministers, who meet as the Eurogroup, took stock of the two candidacies at their meeting on November 9.

What the Eurogroup said

Lagarde told the president of the European Council on October 29 that she would resign by February 7, 2027, the statement said. The ECB announced her departure the same day. Her eight-year term began on November 1, 2019 and would have run until the end of October 2027; our report on her exit has her reasons. The Eurogroup president then opened the nomination process.

After the November 9 meeting, Pierrakakis said in his published remarks that both candidates had "extensive experience and international standing." The ministers did not choose between them.

He said two other seats on the ECB's Executive Board also need to be filled: those of Isabel Schnabel and Philip Lane. Schnabel will step down on January 3, 2027, the ECB said on September 24, and Lane's term ends on May 31, 2027, according to the ECB's table of board members' terms. All three appointments may be considered together by European leaders "in order to facilitate consensus," Pierrakakis said.

Who the candidates are

• Pablo Hernández de Cos has been general manager of the BIS, the Basel-based bank for central banks, since July 1, 2025, according to the BIS. He was governor of the Bank of Spain from 2018 to June 2024 and in that role sat on the ECB's Governing Council. He chaired the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision from 2019 to 2024.
• Klaas Knot was president of De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank, from July 2011 to July 2025 and a member of the ECB's Governing Council, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which announced in April 2026 that he had joined it as a distinguished visiting fellow. He chaired the Financial Stability Board from December 2021 to July 2025.

How the next president is chosen

The European Council appoints the ECB president on a recommendation from the Council of the EU, after consulting the European Parliament and the ECB, according to the Eurogroup statement. The Council's recommendation needs a reinforced qualified majority of euro-area countries: at least 16 of the 21 members, representing at least 65% of the euro-area population. Before the November 9 meeting, Pierrakakis said that "the ambition here is that the whole process would have completed itself by the end of the year," AFP reported. The Eurogroup's next scheduled meeting is on December 10.

Why it matters

The succession comes as euro-area inflation is rising: it reached 4.0% in October, up from 3.8% in September, with energy prices up 20.8% from a year earlier, according to Eurostat's flash estimate. Core inflation, which excludes energy, food, alcohol, and tobacco, held at 2.5%. At its October 29 policy meeting, the ECB left its deposit rate at 2.5%.

What it could mean for traders

For euro and bond traders, the change adds uncertainty about who will lead the ECB's response to inflation in 2027. Neither the Eurogroup statement nor the remarks set out the candidates' policy views. The markers to watch are whether one candidate emerges for the Council's recommendation, whether the three seats are packaged together, and the date leaders set for a decision. The ECB's next monetary policy meeting is on December 16–17, before any of the three board changes take effect.