Christine Lagarde took over as head of the ECB on November 1, 2019, as part of an agreement between French President Emmanuel Macron and then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under which she became head of the regulator and Ursula von der Leyen took over the European Commission. Her tenure coincided with a series of major upheavals: the COVID-19 pandemic, the events in Ukraine, the energy crisis, trade tensions with the US, and America's war with Iran. Now the ECB faces a leadership transition at a time when the eurozone economy is balancing between inflationary risks and worsening financing conditions, and European politics is entering a period of electoral turbulence. The regulator's ability to maintain its course on price stability and prevent staff changes from becoming a source of additional market instability will depend on how quickly and smoothly the transfer of power takes place.