Full interview: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde

📅 Feb 22, 2026 Face the Nation and CBS News 8 MIN 3716 VIEWS 15 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS

Watch Margaret Brennan's full interview with European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, a portion of which aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Feb. 22, 2026. "Face the Nation" is America's premier Sunday morning public affairs program. The broadcast is one of the longest-running news programs in the history of television, having debuted Nov. 7, 1954, on CBS. Every Sunday, "Face the Nation" moderator and CBS News senior foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan welcomes leaders, newsmakers, and experts to a lively round table discussion of current events and the la...

Questions asked in this interview

0:13Did you hear and get any clarity from Ambassador Greer about what's going to happen next?
1:37Do you see that as disruptive that this could be in jeopardy?
3:00Did the consumer avoid the pain?
4:15Do you believe that he personally can resist political pressure from the president?
7:19Is the West losing its leverage as we look towards this war in Ukraine?

Margaret Brennan 0:00 ↗

We're joined now by the head of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde. The ECB sets interest rates for many countries in the European Union, which is America's largest trading partner. It's great to have you here.

Christine Lagarde 0:12 ↗

Great to be here, Margaret.

Margaret Brennan 0:13 ↗

Well, particularly in this moment in time, where there is confusion over what happens next with global trade. I saw that the chancellor of Germany, Germany's the biggest economy in Europe, he came out and said tariffs harm everyone. The biggest poison for the economies of Europe and the US is this uncertainty about tariffs. Did you hear and get any clarity from Ambassador Greer about what's going to happen next?

Christine Lagarde 0:40 ↗

I'm not so sure. And I tell you, I think it's critically important that all people in the trade, both outside of the United States, but also in the United States, have clarity about the future of the relationships because it's a bit like driving. You want to know the rules of the road before you get in the car. It's the same with trade. It's the same with investment. You want to know what the rules are and you want to avoid having to come back and claim tariffs back because this is just not the purpose of people doing business. They want to do business. They don't want to go into legal lawsuits. So, I hope it's going to be clarified and it's going to be sufficiently thought through so that we don't have again more challenges and the proposals will be in compliance with the constitution, in compliance with the law.

Margaret Brennan 1:37 ↗

Well, what you just said sounded very similar to what one of the justices raised. I think it was Justice Gorsuch saying like that's why there is the call to put things in law so that there is clarity for planning ahead. I didn't hear Ambassador Greer say with any certainty that they're going to try to put any of these things in law. Just use existing regulations is what I heard him say. But he did seem certain that the existing trade deals will hold. The EU and the US do have an agreement 15% tariff ceiling in a recent trade deal, but there's an emergency meeting about all this tomorrow. Do you see that as disruptive that this could be in jeopardy?

Christine Lagarde 2:22 ↗

I'm no longer trade minister. I used to be so I don't know what the outcome of those meetings will be. But it's not as if it was sort of straightforward 15% across the boards. There are also exemptions, there are carveouts, there are areas for which there is no tariffs. So I think if it shakes the whole equilibrium which people in the trade had got used to because they continued trading after the April decisions and the July trade arrangement between the US and Europe, but to sort of shake it up again is going to bring about disruptions in the business for sure.

Margaret Brennan 3:00 ↗

Well, when you were last here in October and I asked you about the impact of the tariffs, you said the global economy had not yet felt the pain. Did we avoid that pain? Did the consumer avoid the pain?

8 more exchanges in this transcript

Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX

APA

Lagarde, C. (2026, February 22). Full interview: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde [Interview transcript]. Face the Nation and CBS News. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/719253/

MLA

Christine Lagarde. "Full interview: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde." Face the Nation and CBS News, 22 Feb. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/719253/.

BibTeX

@misc{lagarde2026_719253,
  author       = {Christine Lagarde},
  title        = {Full interview: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Face the Nation and CBS News. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {feb},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/719253/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}

▶

Key Quotes (2)

“I don't think the consumers avoided the pain. Most of it was borne by the US importers and eventually the US consumers because the US importers have squeezed their margins a bit to absorb some of these additional costs due to tariffs, but there is a point where you don't squeeze your margins so much and you have to pass it on to the consumers.”

▶ 3:10 CONTROVERSIAL POLICY

“For monetary policy, the rule of law is critically important and the independence of a central bank is critically important. You don't want someone who sets interest rates, who is in charge of price stability and financial stability, to be under political influence; decisions produce effects six, 12, 18 months or even two years down the road, so we have to be in a way immune to political life. Tha”

▶ 5:13 CONTROVERSIAL POLICY

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About Christine Lagarde

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."

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