Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the Hearing of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament

Brussels, 3 December 2025

It is a pleasure to address this Committee for the fourth time this year.

Recent years have witnessed profound technological, geopolitical, and structural changes which continue to redefine our economic landscape. These shifts underscore not just the importance of improving Europe’s resilience and competitiveness, but also the imperative to build lasting internal economic strength.^[1]

In our previous hearings, we examined this shifting global environment and its implications for the European economy. Today, I will focus my remarks on the instruments in our toolkit, in line with the topic you have selected for this hearing.

Before turning to these tools, let me first outline our assessment of the euro area economy and our current monetary policy stance.

Outlook for the euro area and the ECB’s monetary policy

The…