Keynote speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at “The ECB and Its Watchers” conference organised by the Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability at Goethe University Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main, 25 March 2026

It is a pleasure to be back at the ECB Watchers Conference.

If this event had been held a few weeks ago, my speech would have been very different. The euro area economy ended the year with solid growth momentum. Inflation stood at 1.9% in February. And domestic growth engines looked to be strengthening, particularly private consumption, investment in digitalisation and defence spending.

In all likelihood, we would have revised up our March forecasts for growth and revised them down for inflation.

But we find ourselves yet again in a different world, whose contours are not yet clear. We are facing profound uncertainty about the path of the economy.

None of us can resolve the uncertainty about how the war in Iran will play out. But what I can do is set out how…