ECB Keeps Key Interest Rate at 1%, May Maintain Crisis Mode

The European Central Bank kept interest rates at a record low today and President Jean-Claude Trichet may signal the bank will stay in crisis mode into next year.

The ECB’s Governing Council set the benchmark lending rate at 1 percent for a 17th month, as predicted by all 57 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Policy makers are also likely to extend emergency lending measures for banks into 2011 as the risk of a renewed U.S. recession threatens the euro region’s economic rebound, economists said. Trichet holds a press conference at 2:30 p.m. in Frankfurt.