Welcome to the Eurointelligence podcast. I'm Wolfgang Munchau and with me are Zuzana Muncheng and Jack Smith.

Today we will talk about the ECB, what's going to happen there after the now certain departure of Christine Lagarde.

We presume at some point this year. So, Susanna, what happened this week? What do we know about

Christine Lagarde? Who is in the running for her succession? And how does this play into French

politics? Yeah, I think to set up the context, I mean, the ECB is the second largest central bank

in the world. So we have now a change of the governor of the Fed in the US.

And now we have the next change in the ECB, Christine Lagarde. We are sort of certain that

she's going to leave this year? Her official term was supposed to end until October next year.

I mean, there are a couple of changes now happening in the ECB executive board.

It's not only Christine Lagarde.

The next also job that will become available is Louis de Guendo's, the ECB vice president.

His term is ending May this year.

So you already have two openings on the executive board

with Lagarde if she were to resign. It's of course a personal choice. In a moment I talk about

a little bit the French context in which she is actually resigning. But for now, let's first look at

the names and who's in the game because that's one of the favorite things

that a lot of commentators like to engage in, who's going to be the possible successor,

who's going to have the best chances. I mean, to the top jobs in Europe is always subject to

intense negotiations. And that's why it is important that several posts come in at the same time

because it's not only then about Christine Nagarde but also there could be negotiations

and there could be a deal over several of denominations for the executive board. So Christine Nagarde

would be one. The de Guinders position as a vice president could be one.

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