Global economic resilience exceeds expectations, but geopolitics undoes policy gains: ECB President

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said the resilience of the global economy stands as the most unexpected bright spot of recent years, while geopolitical developments disrupting economic policy remain her foremost regret.

Lagarde spoke to China Media Group (CMG) on the sidelines of the 2026 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group, held in Bangkok, Thailand, from October 12 to 18. She said that after years of bracing for the worst -- from the pandemic to war and repeated energy crises -- what struck her most was how well the global economy had withstood them.

"What surprised me a lot about the global economic outlook and about the state of the global economy is the resilience. We had all anticipated, two years ago, one year ago, that the situation would deteriorate, that growth would be down, that whether it was advanced, emerging or lower-income countries, all economies would stand to suffer as a result of the compounded shocks that we have suffered for the last almost six years now. And most economic advisers and experts were assuming that our economies would not fare well and would be hit severely and the surprise is that it has shown a resilience that we had not anticipated. So that's the pull on the positive side," she said.

On the other side of the ledger, Lagarde said geopolitical shifts are reversing hard-earned progress, interrupting a return to price stability that had taken years to engineer.

"What surprises me, unfortunately, on the negative side, is that, much to our regret, the geopolitical landscape is really damaging the economic policies that we're heading in the right direction. If I look at me, very selfishly, we were back to our medium-term target of two percent inflation. So although I never said job done, we really felt that we had pulled all the strings and taken all the right measures and applied the right analysis to reach our target. But unfortunately, that was disrupted. So the geopolitical developments, the action of men and women is actually hurting the development that would otherwise have taken place. So that's a regret that I have. So surprise on the good side, resilience, regret that geopolitical transformation and developments are really not helping the stability of prices, the development of growth and the innovation and progress that all human beings can expect," she said.

Global economic resilience exceeds expectations, but geopolitics undoes policy gains: ECB President

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde stressed the importance of human control over the direction of artificial intelligence (AI) development in an interview with China Media Group in Bangkok, Thailand, earlier this month.

Lagarde has recently warned that Europe faces an extraordinary crisis, as it has fallen far behind the United States and China in AI models, computing power, and investment.

However, in the interview that aired on Friday, she placed greater emphasis on the risks AI poses to humanity as a whole rather than on the regional concern.

"Because I think that there is one particular element, which I strongly believe in. What? The developments that we are seeing as a result of artificial intelligence are so transformational, and gearing in such an independent direction with potential recursive development to artificial intelligence that I think that all of us -- meaning the United States, China, Europe, corporate as well as policymakers -- should be preoccupied by this development. And I see it as a priority that we all understand where this is going and what kind of control human beings like you and me continue to have on this development. I'm more concerned about that than about closing the gap," she said.

Lagarde expressed confidence in the outlook for Europe's AI development and urged efforts to better leverage the region's talent and financial resources.

"So on closing the gap, it's pretty obvious from all accounts -- and I'm not the ultimate expert on artificial intelligence -- but those who know are saying that the United States is ahead of the game, that China is shortly behind. [Compared with] those developments in the U.S., [Chinese developments are] operating on a different model -- less proprietary and more open source. And Europe is -- for some of the member states -- a distant third. So can we become less of a distant third and be a third but have some control and some operational innovation? I think that should be the case, because we should also be able to develop. We have bright minds, great schooling, money, but we don't put them together well," she said.

Lagarde also called for cooperation among different parts of the world, instead of the pursuit of sole dominance.

"I also think that artificial intelligence is a long chain of different segments. So you are hand in hand with others. You don't control the entire ecosystem," she said.

ECB president underscores importance of keeping AI development under control