ECB head Christine Lagarde delivers a speech during the opening of the 35th Frankfurt European Banking Congress in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on November 21, 2025. In a scathing speech, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) warned that Europe’s “old growth model” had become outdated, as its dependence on exports had become a “vulnerability”. Making the keynote address at the European Banking Congress in Frankfurt, Lagarde pointed to a two-year-old ECB forecast that predicted that euro area exports would grow by about 8 per cent by mid-2025. Ms Lagarde urged European Union (EU) policymakers to respond by strengthening the domestic economy, which she said was already showing “latent strengths”. Europe’s economic weaknesses “do not trigger dramatic crises” but “erode growth quietly, as each new shock nudges us on to a slightly lower trajectory”, Lagarde said.
