European Central Financial institution (ECB) president Christine Lagarde is stepping down someday earlier than the French presidential election subsequent yr.
Beneath her management, the ECB has consulted on the Markets in Crypto Property (MiCA) laws that outlined the crypto panorama within the European Union. The preeminent European financial institution additionally started work on the digital euro — the following iteration of the Eurozone’s forex.
However there’s nonetheless work to be achieved on crypto coverage in Europe. MiCA doesn’t, in its present kind, regulate decentralized finance (DeFi), and policymakers on the ECB are nonetheless deliberating over the digital euro’s closing particulars.
Whereas the precise timing of Lagarde’s departure has not but been decided, observers are already speculating about who will take her place and the way it will have an effect on crypto coverage in Europe.
Lagarde was a crypto-skeptic, vital of stablecoins
Like many central bankers, Lagarde has been cautious at finest in terms of cryptocurrencies. In 2022, she mentioned relating to crypto, “My very humble evaluation is that it’s value nothing.”
“It’s primarily based on nothing … There isn’t a underlying asset to behave as an anchor of security.”
She mentioned that crypto ought to be regulated, citing concern that traders didn’t perceive the dangers related to crypto investing and would “lose all of it.”
This set the tone for the ECB consultations on MiCA that might comply with. The ECB itself doesn’t create legal guidelines, however all through the legislative course of, the ECB suggested, noticed and provided feedback, notably over areas associated to financial coverage and funds rules.
Even after MiCA was handed, Lagarde advocated for tight rules on stablecoins and aligning worldwide requirements. In September 2025, she known as on lawmakers in Europe to offer safeguards for stablecoins and equivalence for international stablecoin issuers to stop the chance of stablecoin runs.
“European laws ought to make sure that such schemes can not function within the EU until supported by strong equivalence regimes in different jurisdictions and safeguards referring to the switch of belongings between the EU and non-EU entities,” she mentioned.
“This additionally highlights why worldwide cooperation is indispensable. With no stage world enjoying area, dangers will all the time search the trail of least resistance.”
She additional said that stablecoins are a risk to nationwide sovereignty and switch cash from a public good right into a privately managed enterprise.
“When stablecoins are left unchecked, we threat making a system wherein cash is managed by the non-public sector. That isn’t the mandate we have been appointed to function public servants.”
Demand for digital money and the euro
Whereas a famous crypto skeptic, Lagarde acknowledged the demand for digital currencies again in 2021. In an interview that yr on the World Financial Discussion board, Lagarde mentioned, “If prospects favor to make use of digital currencies reasonably than have banknotes and money out there, it ought to be out there.”
“We should always reply to that demand and have an answer that’s European primarily based, that’s safe, that’s out there, and pleasant phrases that can be utilized as a way of fee.” On the ECB stage, this response took the type of the digital euro.
However the wheels of Brussels don’t flip rapidly. The investigation section for a digital euro started all the best way again in October 2021. In October 2025, the ECB accomplished the preparation section when its governing council determined to start out making ready for issuance.
The digital euro has confronted harsh criticism, specifically that it’ll give central banks yet one more instrument to observe client conduct, management spending and eradicate nameless transactions. There have additionally been issues over offline operability and overreliance on digital methods.
The ECB claims that the digital euro may have strict privateness requirements and that it’ll deliver all the identical advantages of money to the digital financial area. In October 2025, Lagarde mentioned that the ECB needs to make the euro “match for the long run, redesigning and modernising our banknotes and making ready for the issuance of digital money.”
Her colleague, ECB govt board member Piero Cipollone, iterated that the digital euro “will make sure that folks get pleasure from the advantages of money additionally within the digital period. In doing so, it would improve the resilience of Europe’s fee panorama, decrease prices for retailers, and create a platform for personal corporations to innovate, scale up and compete.”
New ECB frontrunners unlikely to depart from cautious stance
Lagarde’s determination to step down comes at a politically fraught time. Leaving earlier than the following French presidential election will enable President Emmanuel Macron to take part in choosing her alternative.
France is the second-largest financial system within the EU, and in response to Reuters, no ECB president has been picked with no nod from Paris.
The fitting-wing Nationwide Rally has been ascendant within the polls not too long ago, whereas Macron has failed to supply steady governance, with seven completely different prime ministers serving underneath his tenure. Nationwide Rally president Jordan Bardella claims that, in selecting a brand new ECB president, Macron would have the ability to train affect past the top of his official time period.
Based on the Monetary Occasions, the present frontrunners to interchange Lagarde are former Spanish central financial institution governor Pablo Hernández de Cos and former Dutch central financial institution governor Klaas Knot.
In 2022, Hernández de Cos mentioned at a Financial institution of Worldwide Settlements (BIS) convention that crypto can “pose extremely vital dangers which might be laborious to know and measure, even for essentially the most skilled brokers.”
He known as for a sturdy regulatory framework to transition crypto from “that hyperbolic ‘Wild West’ delusion to a extra fascinating orderly ‘railroad of civilisation.’”
Knot has been equally cautious. Talking earlier than the BIS in 2024, he acknowledged the doable advantages of sure facets of blockchain expertise.
Associated: How euro stablecoins might handle EU’s greenback issues
“Making a digital illustration of an asset and inserting it on a distributed ledger might deliver advantages to the monetary system. This contains effectivity good points and doubtlessly elevated liquidity of sure belongings. In fact, there can also be dangers for monetary stability.”
Nonetheless, he confused the regulators have been assessing the implications these applied sciences would have on broader monetary stability, stating that, “We can not presume that this innovation, and doubtlessly extra decentralization, will deliver vital advantages to the worldwide monetary system.”
In June 2025, he addressed stablecoins particularly. Knot mentioned that whether or not the following type of cash comes by way of stablecoins or already established fee networks “ought to be one thing we’re agnostic on.”
Whereas impartial on the style of expertise supporting monetary innovation, he mentioned that “fostering innovation should not come on the expense of stability.”
Whereas typically criticized for the glacial tempo of progress, the EU managed to move a complete crypto framework sooner than the much more crypto-friendly United States. This framework included steering and enter from a crypto-cautious central financial institution, with a skeptic on the helm.
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