FRANKFURT, April 4 (Reuters) – The European Central Bank
held interest rates at a record low of 1 percent on Wednesday
and is expected to resist German pressure to flag an exit from
its crisis-fighting mode as the euro zone recovery looks
increasingly shaky and concerns grow about Spain.

Germany’s powerful Bundesbank has led a push by central
bankers from the euro zone’s core for the ECB to begin preparing
an exit from crisis measures that have seen it loosen the rules
for tapping ECB funding operations.

FRANKFURT, March 26 (Reuters) – A sharp rise in German
property prices is worrying some European Central Bank
policymakers but the sudden upswing is unlikely to push the ECB
into raising interest rates.

The ECB sets rates for all 17 euro zone members no matter
what state their individual economies are in, and Germany’s
mini-boom is more than balanced by depressed housing markets
elsewhere, notably Spain and Ireland.

DUBLIN/FRANKFURT, March 22 (Reuters) – Ireland expects to
win support from the European Central Bank for its plan to avoid
a 3.1 billion euro payment due next week on high interest loans
put in place at the height of the financial crisis to prop up
one of its failed banks.

The proposal, put ECB President Mario Draghi by Ireland’s
finance minister and its central bank governor, will see Ireland
issue a 13-year bond to meet this year’s 3.1 billion euro
payment of so-called promissory notes used to bolster the former
Anglo Irish Bank.

FRANKFURT, March 8 (Reuters) – The European Central
Bank signalled its policy course was slowly turning on Thursday,
delivering a surprise warning on inflation and calling
governments and banks to build on its recent blitz of radical
support measures to foster a full crisis recovery.

The ECB kept interest rates at a record of low of 1 percent
for a third month running as expected, after completing two
monster injections of cheap cash which have flushed over a
trillion euros of three-year money into the euro zone.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank is expected to keep interest rates on hold later on Thursday and signal that it has played its part in fighting the euro zone crisis after unleashing a dramatic sweep of measures that has unsettled some at the bank.

ECB President Mario Draghi is likely to put the onus on governments to fight the crisis now after the central bank pumped over 1 trillion euros into the euro zone banking system in the last two months with twin three-year funding operations.

FRANKFURT, March 8 (Reuters) – The European Central
Bank is expected to keep interest rates on hold on Thursday and
signal that it has played its part in fighting the euro zone
crisis after unleashing a dramatic sweep of measures that has
unsettled some at the bank.

ECB President Mario Draghi is likely to put the onus on
governments to fight the crisis now after the central bank
pumped over 1 trillion euros into the euro zone banking system
in the last two months with twin three-year funding operations.

FRANKFURT, March 1 (Reuters) – Some European Central
Bank policymakers are alarmed that a dramatic loosening of
lending policy stemming from a 1-trillion-euro wave of cash
unleashed into the financial system will fuel imbalances in the
euro zone and stoke inflationary pressures.

Led by Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann, who was previously a
top advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, they are pushing
for the central bank to think about an exit strategy after it
fed banks 530 billion euros on Wednesday in the second of two
cheap, ultra-long funding operations.

DUBLIN/KARLSRUHE, Germany (Reuters) – A planned referendum in Ireland and a German court ruling cast new uncertainty on Tuesday over efforts to overcome the euro zone’s debt crisis, just when a flood of central bank money appeared to be calming financial markets.

Ireland’s prickly electorate, which has twice voted “No” to European Union treaties before reversing itself, will get another chance to keep Europe on tenterhooks with a referendum on a fiscal compact on budget discipline agreed last month.

KARLSRUHE, Germany (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s room for maneuver on future euro zone bailouts, in doubt after a revolt by coalition lawmakers, shrank further on Tuesday when Germany’s top court raised a hurdle to swift action in financial rescues.

The German constitutional court ruled that parliament may not delegate most decisions on disbursing bailout funds to a special committee meeting in secret, as Merkel had planned after a previous ruling bolstered lawmakers’ oversight powers.