European Central Bank President Lagarde to step down early

Ao vivo Clique aqui para pesquisar pesquisar Inscreva-se Navegação menu seta-esquerda seta-direita Notícias|Negócios e Economia Presidente do Banco Central Europeu Lagarde vai deixar o cargo cedo Christine Lagarde deixará o cargo em fevereiro, nove meses antes do fim de seu mandato de oito anos.

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Lagarde announced on Thursday that she will leave the post on February 7, about nine months before the scheduled end of her eight-year term. She said in a filmed statement posted on X that she was leaving “with a sense of good work done and an ECB that is fit for the future”.

The move gives European Union leaders time to choose her successor before April’s French presidential election, which polls have suggested far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is favoured to win.

The timing could allow current European Council members, including French President Emmanuel Macron, to take part in appointing Lagarde’s successor before France’s vote.

Macron, who is not allowed to run again, thanked Lagarde in a post on X for “the determined action she led at the head of the European Central Bank” during “a period marked by numerous crises”.

However, Markus Ferber, a German member of the European Parliament, warned: “If the impression arises that such a departure is timed around national elections, it damages trust in an institution that must stand above any domestic political calculation.”.

Chanceler alemão Friedrich Merz, líder da maior economia da zona do euro, disse que Lagarde liderou o banco “with great aplomb during challenging times”, e a chefe da União Europeia Ursula von der Leyen agradeceu a Lagarde “for everything you have done for Europe and the euro”.

Ministro francês das Finanças Roland Lescure elogiu seu mandato. “Christine Lagarde tem sido uma presidente excepcional do BCE. À medida que a Europa navegava por crises e tempos difíceis, ela modernizou e fortaleceu a instituição de forma brilhante,” ele postou nas redes sociais.

Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Institute for Economic Research, told the Reuters news agency the early exit gives governments “an opportunity to appoint a successor who will safeguard European values and protect the ECB’s independence”.

Markets appeared unfazed. “Our view is that institutional behaviour is likely to outlast Lagarde and be quite similar, whoever takes over,” Simon Dangoor, head of fixed income macro investing at Goldman Sachs told Reuters.

Lagarde, appointed in October 2019, steered the bank through the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the United States-Israel war on Iran.

O BCE enfrentou críticas por ter reagido de forma lenta à explosão da inflação em 2022, causada por gargalos na cadeia de suprimentos pós-pandemia e pela guerra na Ucrânia.

A inflação está atualmente em quase o dobro da meta de 2% do banco, em meio a preocupações com as finanças públicas da França.

A former French finance minister and head of the International Monetary Fund, Lagarde arrived in Frankfurt in 2019 as the first ECB chief with no formal economics training or central banking experience, prompting some market participants to warn of a “credibility risk”.

In March 2020 as the pandemic shook sovereign debt markets, she said the bank was not there to narrow the gap between Italian and German borrowing costs. She went on to show that political diplomacy could steer a central bank through historic shocks.

Fontes disseram à agência de notícias AFP que sair cedo daria à Lagarde “greater freedom to express her views”. Ela insinuou que poderia fazer campanha na corrida presidencial francesa, dizendo que uma voz europeia era necessária no debate.

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