ECB May Pause With Rates as Crisis Turns Focus to Bond Buys

The European Central Bank may be prevented from raising interest rates again this year as economic growth slows and the region’s debt crisis spreads to Italy and Spain, increasing pressure on the ECB to resume bond purchases.

Policy makers meeting in Frankfurt today will keep the benchmark rate at 1.5 percent, according to all 54 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. With yields on Italian and Spanish bonds near euro-era records and the German economy showing signs of weakening, investors have reduced bets on the ECB adding to its two rate increases in 2011, even as some central bank officials push for more monetary tightening to tame inflation.