When the European Central Bank's governing council gathers in Frankfurt next Thursday for its regular rate-setting meeting, its members might congratulate themselves on their consistency and predictability. No one expects it to do anything other than hold the bank's main interest rate at 2.0 per cent, marking exactly two years of no change.

But ECB leaders know such backslapping would be unwarranted. The state of the eurozone economy - comprising the 12 countries that share the euro currency - and the increasingly difficult European political environment in which the bank has to operate are no cause for celebration.