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Christine Lagarde

President, European Central Bank

Search every verified Christine Lagarde interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), has been active in public engagements over the past two months, addressing monetary policy, inflation, and the digital euro. At the CNN Global Perspectives event in Bangkok in October 2026, she stated that fiscal discipline, particularly in countries like France, is the primary solution to rising bond yields, and she argued that Europe's economic growth is stronger than often perceived, citing upward revisions to 1.1% for 2026. She also discussed the impact of energy shocks from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, saying the ECB does not react to energy prices directly but monitors for second-round effects on inflation. Lagarde reaffirmed the ECB's commitment to its 2% medium-term inflation target, noting that inflation is projected to remain above target until the end of 2027 or 2028. On the digital euro, Lagarde announced that the Eurosystem will launch "Pontes," a distributed-ledger infrastructure for banks, on September 21, 2026, and expressed hope that the legislative process for the digital euro would be completed by the end of the year, with a pilot expected in mid-2027. She described the digital euro as a means for Europe to maintain control over its payment infrastructure, while acknowledging a role for stablecoins in moving crypto assets into fiat currency. In September, the ECB's Governing Council raised key interest rates by 25 basis points, a decision Lagarde described as a "no-brainer" and a unanimous choice to address inflation pressures. She also spoke on artificial intelligence, noting its potential to transform productivity and inflation dynamics, and emphasized the need for Europe to achieve "AI sovereignty."

Recent appearances

Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“I agree that those payment companies are global players and they have been at it for a long time and they have invested heavily and they charge their services appropriately and uh but they are private operators and they are subject to jurisdictions that are not European jurisdictions. So I think all we are saying is in order to be the master of your own destiny you need to be able to switch on switch off yourself and”

“So in relation to stable coins, you know, there is no hostility, but I think that they play a different role from that of the digital euro. And I can see a business case for stable coins when for instance they're trying to move crypto assets into the fiat money world and that's predominantly what they do at the moment and they do that well. You know about 90% of all stable coins transactions serve that purpose. Move ”

“The uptake of agent AI may mitigate some risks, but it could also create new ones. If firms train the AI agents on proprietary data, for instance, their balance sheets, their client flows, their client data, trade decisions may become less correlated than if traders were simply querying the same models with similar prompts. But greater autonomy also brings a new risk for financial markets misalignment where AI agents”

“Generative AI is already widely used in finance. Nearly nine out of 10 significant euro area banks use it. In addition, a recent survey of EU securities market firms, according to that study, seven out of 10 respondents expected to increase their investment in AI. So we conduct those surveys at the ECB level with the corporate world and this is significantly higher in the financial sector relative to the rest of the ”

“The second temptation globally is to step back when other do so as well. But that would leave us more exposed to decisions taken elsewhere and to risk that can only be mitigated when we act together. So instead of that we need to be realistic because in a race to the bottom everybody ends up at the bottom and that's the issue. So we should keep supporting global standards and look for common ground wherever we can wh”

“More of what affects our tasks now crosses borders. For example, stable coins. Most of them issued outside Europe in funny places actually and most of them denominated in US dollars. They offer digital alternative to bank deposits and could certainly weaken the channels through which our monetary policy is transmitted. The large banking groups we supervise operate across many jurisdictions. Dealing with these particu”

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