Sintra hosting Draghi’s last ECB Forum

Four months before leaving the Presidency of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi returns to Sintra this Monday for one more edition of the ECB Forum. He is bringing with him 23 governors representing 20% of the global economy – four of them highly likely to replace him.

The expected candidates are governors Jens Weidman (German Central Bank), François Villeroy (French Central Bank), Olli Rehn (Finnish Central Bank), and Klaas Knot (Dutch Central Bank). The major absence is the former Finnish Governor Erkki Liikanen, known to be the favourite to succeed the incumbent Draghi.

The ECB Forum takes place since 2014 when the institution decided to gather the governors of all central banks across Europe in the idyllic Penha Longa Resort, in Sintra, for three days of debate on the economy. Somehow more formal than the conference organised by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, where major economic and political players meet to discuss global economy since 1978, the Forum will be making a balance on the 20 Years of Euro.

From the long list of invited speakers and participants, important names such as the Chief Economists of OECD and IMF, the former President of the US Federal Reserve Bank (Janet Yellen), and Jean Claude Trichet, the predecessor of Mario Draghi, will be in attendance.

Jean-Claude Juncker will also be addressing the Forum this Wednesday. It will be the second time a President of the European Commission attends this Forum. The first was the Portuguese José Manuel Durão Barroso, Juncker’s predecessor, both in their final year of mandate.