Lagarde emphasizes Europe's stability and competitiveness
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde addressed the European Parliament on February 9, 2026, emphasizing the ECB's commitment to price stability and strengthening Europe's resilience and competitiveness in a volatile global environment. She highlighted the progress on inflation and the importance of initiatives like the digital euro.
Price stability in an uncertain world
Lagarde underscored that price stability remains a necessary condition for sustainable growth and investment, especially in a volatile global environment.
She noted that annual inflation stood at 1.7 percent in January, with Eurosystem staff projections from December expecting headline inflation to average 1.9 percent in 2026, 1.8 percent in 2027, and 2.0 percent in 2028. The Governing Council decided last Thursday to keep interest rates unchanged, reconfirming the assessment that inflation should sustainably stabilize at the 2 percent medium-term target.
Lagarde affirmed the ECB's data-dependent, meeting-by-meeting approach to monetary policy, basing decisions on the evolving inflation outlook, incoming economic and financial data, and underlying inflation dynamics.
Economic activity in the euro area has shown resilience, growing by an estimated 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and 1.5 percent in 2025 as a whole, surpassing earlier projections.
Digital euro and market infrastructure
Beyond price stability, Lagarde outlined the ECB's role in bolstering Europe's resilience through central bank money and market infrastructure.
She reiterated strong support for the proposed legal tender Regulation to ensure cash availability and accessibility.
Complementing physical cash, the digital euro is being prepared to offer a privacy-focused, widely accepted digital payment solution across the euro area, reducing merchant fees and fostering European payment infrastructure.
In parallel, the ECB aims to make tokenised central bank money available to support an integrated European ecosystem for digital assets.
Project Pontes will deliver a solution for DLT-based wholesale transactions in central bank money by the third quarter of this year.
A broader mandate, a familiar challenge
The speech highlights the ECB's expanding role beyond its core price stability mandate, venturing into digital currency and market infrastructure.
While these initiatives are crucial for Europe's future resilience, they also risk diluting the central bank's primary focus.
The challenge lies in balancing innovation with the unwavering commitment to price stability.