European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde will resign Feb. 7, nine months early

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde will resign Feb. 7, nine months ahead of the end of her 8-year term, the ECB said Thursday.

The resignation opens the way for European leaders to choose a successor for the ECB president and other top officials whose terms are ending next year.

There had been speculation that Lagarde would leave early to enable EU leaders to choose a successor while pro-EU French President Emmanuel Macron is still in office and guard against the possibility that right-wing presidential candidate Marine Le Pen might win the election and influence the choice.

The term of another top ECB official — chief economist Philip Lane — is to end May 31, while another member of the ECB's executive board, Isabel Schnabel, is resigning at year end to move to the International Monetary Fund. European leaders are expected to work out a package deal to apportion the three vacancies among member countries in a complex round of political bargaining.

EU leaders would likely seek to reach agreement before a summit meeting on Dec. 17-18, said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank.

He said that leading candidates for Lagarde's job appeared to be former Netherlands central bank head Klaas Knot and Spain’s Pablo Hernandez de Cos, the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements.

“The European Union is trying to guard itself at least somewhat against the risk that right-wing Marine Le Pen may win the French presidential election in April-May 2027,” Schmieding wrote in an email. “Lagarde’s successor will still be appointed while the staunchly pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron still resides in the Elysee Palace.”

Lagarde, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, was appointed in 2011 to succeed Mario Draghi.