Introductory speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the opening reception of the ECB Forum on Central Banking 2025 “Adapting to change: macroeconomic shifts and policy responses”

Sintra, 30 June 2025

As Nietzsche once observed, “it is our future that lays down the law of our today.”

When we last reviewed our strategy four years ago, our thinking was shaped – quite naturally – by the recent past: a decade of too-low inflation, compounded by the pandemic.

But as Nietzsche warned, there is a danger in letting the past dominate our thinking. Sometimes, it is the future – still dimly understood – that is already shaping our present.

And soon after that review, the world changed in ways we had not foreseen.

The reopening of our economies after the pandemic brought about major sectoral shifts. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a fundamental shift in energy markets.

The geopolitical landscape was upended, reshaping global trade. And structural changes in…