ECB Keeps Key Interest Rate at 1% as Trichet Faces Oil Shock

The European Central Bank kept interest rates at a record low today as policy makers grapple with an oil-price shock that’s driving inflation beyond the bank’s limit while also threatening to damp economic growth.

ECB officials meeting in Frankfurt set the benchmark rate at 1 percent for a 23rd month, as predicted by all 53 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. President Jean-Claude Trichet, who holds a press conference at 2:30 p.m., may toughen his inflation-fighting language and leave open the option of raising borrowing costs later this year, economists said.