The French government shows a preference for Spanish Pablo Hernández de Cos over his Dutch rival, Klaas Knot, for the presidency of the European Central Bank. French sources confirm this to Financial Times and Le Monde, which could be a significant boost for the Spaniard, currently the General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel. Other informed sources tell El MUNDO that there are indeed positive signals from Paris in favor of the former governor of the Bank of Spain, who has the official international backing of the Spanish government and the Popular Party.
France is in the spotlight of the markets due to its uncontrolled debt and deficit and leans towards a profile more inclined to support eurozone countries questioned by investors, such as De Cos, in line with the approach maintained by Mario Draghi. Knot, however, has more of a "hawk" reputation and is stricter with indebted countries.
The French backing is not, however, official, and it remains to be seen whether De Cos can succeed Christine Lagarde. This Friday's European Council, which Pedro Sánchez is not expected to attend, does not appear to be decisive, and all eyes are on the next meeting in December, as this newspaper has already reported.
For Lagarde's succession, an agreement between Germany and France is key, as they want to place one of their nationals in other ECB positions. Both countries want to appoint the next chief economist to replace the Irish Philip Lane. An agreement could be that Berlin takes that position in exchange for allowing France to have a more "dove" president, such as De Cos. Financial Times suggests that Paris could take the position at the ECB left by the German Isabel Schnabel, which is also important because it deals with the markets. In any case, both the Spaniard and the Dutchman still have chances, without ruling out the emergence of a surprise third candidate, as happened in 2019 with Lagarde's unexpected rise.