ECB Insight: Vujčić VP Nomination Narrows the Range for Lagarde’s Successor

20 January 2026

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Euro area finance ministers’ nomination on Monday of Croatian central bank governor Boris Vujčić to succeed European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos is a mainstream pick from a largely mainstream field.

Politically, it also tightens the plausibility frontier for the much bigger decision due in 2027: who succeeds ECB President Christine Lagarde.

On Econostream’s hawk-dove scale, Vujčić sits around the “moderate hawk” range at 0.75. That’s relevant because top-job allocations tend to gravitate toward a rough equilibrium across the two most visible posts.

With the vice presidency now occupied at a moderately hawkish level, it becomes harder to imagine EU leaders opting for a distinctly more hawkish president next year without inviting a fierce opposition from more dovish capitals.

That dynamic is negative for the most overtly hawkish presidency scenarios. It thus weakens the odds for former Dutch National Bank Governor Klaas Knot. Germany’s weight will always be pivotal in any “northern” outcome, but the Netherlands has long been one of the camp’s most recognizable hawkish voices.

With a moderate hawk already taking the number-two slot, the political case for pushing the center of gravity further in the same direction in 2027 is less compelling than it would have been under a dovish vice president.

By that token, the outcome does nothing to strengthen the case for current Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel as Lagarde’s successor.

The same balancing logic cuts the other way too: the relative standing of potential presidential candidates who are less hawkish than Vujčić improves. Most notably, Pablo Hernández de Cos looks considerably more viable than he would have under a Centeno vice presidency.

That does not mean his path would be simple. Our earlier de Cos analysis was never about merit, but about political feasibility and timing, given that he only recently moved to the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland.

Still, Vujčić’s selection keeps the de Cos idea alive, whereas a Centeno win would likely have strengthened the argument for a markedly more hawkish president and crowded out centrist options—not to mention any candidate of Iberian origin.

Nor should leaders assume that Basel is the only “hard” institutional constraint facing de Cos. If capitals can talk themselves into de Cos leaving the BIS early for the ECB presidency, then it is difficult to argue that Nadia Calviño could not just as easily leave her post at the head of the European Investment Bank early—particularly if gender balance becomes a binding consideration in 2027.

Vujčić’s nomination also complicates Joachim Nagel’s route to the presidency, though perhaps less so than Knot’s. On the same Econostream scale, Nagel is broadly as hawkish as Vujčić. A president and vice president both sitting at that level is not impossible, but it would make it harder to sell the overall package as balanced unless other senior posts were used aggressively to offset the signal.

That said, none of this should be treated as mechanical. The ECB has already lived through an Italian president and a Portuguese vice president, both quite dovish, serving simultaneously (Mario Draghi and Vítor Constâncio).

Nothing formally prevents leaders from choosing a president with a profile similar to that of Vujčić. The question is simply whether that pairing can command the breadth of support required.

If the presidency were to go to de Cos, the downstream implications for the big four are relatively straightforward. It would not dislodge Piero Cipollone, meaning Italy retains its seat. Germany would have a natural claim to regain a “normal” Executive Board seat when Isabel Schnabel’s term expires.

France, meanwhile, would have an especially strong case for the chief economist portfolio when Philip Lane’s seat turns over. We have floated the name of Banque de France Deputy Governor Agnès Bénassy-Quéré, but former OECD Deputy Secretary-General and Chief Economist Laurence Boone and Hélène Rey, a professor of economics at London Business School, are also credible possibilities.

The calendar encourages leaders to think in clusters whether they admit it or not. Lane’s term ends on 31 May 2027. Lagarde’s ends five months after that. Schnabel’s ends another two months later.

Even if the vice presidency decision was not formally “packaged”—the opening stood alone, a full year before the next one—those three vacancies are close enough that capitals may prefer to settle multiple files in one fell swoop rather than return to the same bargaining table repeatedly.

Vujčić’s selection also changes the representation debate. A later-joining euro area member has now taken the vice presidency, which should ease the immediate “new member state” representation pressure.

But given the limited number of Board seats and the likelihood that large capitals will still insist on representation in the 2027 turnover, any other later-joining member with hopes of an appointment would probably require at least one large country to forgo a seat—a scenario that looks less likely after Vujčić’s selection.

In that sense, the vice presidency decision may buy time for the core capitals while narrowing the opportunities for other later-joiners over the foreseeable future.

The surprise element in Vujčić’s win was captured neatly by one news portal that ran a headline along the lines of: “Latvia’s central bank president overtaken by a Croatian who emerged from nowhere.”

The phrasing is deliberately sharp, but it reflects a political reality: Vujčić was not the most talked-about contender, kept a low media profile, and benefited from a process where acceptability across a broad coalition can matter more than early momentum.