The financial director of Banco Sabadell, Sergio Palavecino, has valued the work carried out by Christine Lagarde at the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) "positively," a post she will leave next February 7, and has underlined that in the Vallesan entity they would be "delighted" if the former governor of Banco de España, Pablo Hernández de Cos, proposed by the Government as a candidate for the presidency of the European monetary body, ended up occupying the post.
During the press conference following the presentation of the results for the third quarter of 2026, at the moment when the decision from Frankfurt became known, the financial head of the Catalan bank emphasized that the Spanish candidate "deserves all the respect and admiration" of the sector, and expressed his explicit support for him to be able to become the next president of the European supervisor.
The current president of the ECB announced her decision this Thursday after previously communicating it to the Governing Council and to the president of the European Council, António Costa. "I have just informed my colleagues that I will leave my post as president of the ECB on 7 February 2027," announced the French leader on her account on the social network X. "It has been a great honor to serve this institution. I thank everyone who has supported me during these seven years," she added in the same message.
For its part, the ECB has indicated that the members of the Governing Council, composed of the six members of the Executive Committee and the governors of the national central banks of the euro, "warmly thanked President Lagarde and gave her a long standing ovation".
The institution has also recalled that Lagarde's replacement, among whose possible candidates Hernández de Cos figures, will be appointed by the European Council following the designation procedure provided for in article 283 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Regarding the evolution of interest rates, Palavecino has anticipated that the bank expects the ECB to increase the price of money to 2.75% in the December meeting and that it could reach 3% over the course of the next fiscal year, although he has qualified that, for the moment, they do not consider reasons for it to exceed that level.