For more than two years, the European Central Bank has left its main interest rate unchanged at 2 per cent. But expectations are mounting that Jean-Claude Trichet, ECB president, will this week signal clearly that an increase is imminent.

Comments by ECB officials and economic data released recently have almost without exception lent weight to the case for the ECB to follow the US Federal Reserve and increase interest rates from the emergency low level it set in June 2003.