Acceptance speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, for the Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award 2026 at Columbia Law School in New York

New York, 20 February 2026

It is an honour to receive the Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award from the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

This is the first time that a central banker has received this award, which is dedicated to the memory of one of the most eminent legal scholars of his generation – as well versed in legal theory as he was in the practical realities of law.^[1]

That said, I am a central banker with 25 years of experience in private international law. So perhaps that helped me to qualify.

Looking back on my career, I have come to realise that the professions of law and central banking are not so different. Lawyers and central bankers are ultimately merchants of trust.

Both law and money are institutional systems built on trust backed by authority. Laws work because people believe in their legitimacy. And money works because…