Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the 35th Frankfurt European Banking Congress

Frankfurt am Main, 21 November 2025

I would like to start with a quote:

“The world around us does not stand still.

In recent years, the global environment has been transformed in ways that none of us could have imagined. We have seen the post-war global order fracturing, the rise of new – and some old – powers, rapid changes in technology, and an uncertain outlook for global trade and finance.

Uncertainty abounds and conventional wisdom is being challenged, in politics, in diplomacy and in economics. And, unavoidably, this calls on Europe to consider its place in the world and reset its ambitions.”

This may sound like the kind of passage you have heard in many speeches this year. But, in fact, it is from the first speech I gave as ECB President – at this very conference in November 2019.^[1]

In that speech, I urged Europe to recognise that its old growth model – built on…