THE ECB is …indecisive now. They give out mixed signals whether they gonna make some change to the rate or not.

In SEP they said they would raise.
In Oct they said they would keep it steady.
And prospect is to have a RISE.

One month after it abandoned a planned increase in borrowing costs in the face of credit market chaos, the European Central Bank gave little indication of when — or if — it would resuming lifting its benchmark rate. But Mr. Trichet did make clear that the bank’s next move was more likely to be up rather than down.

Samuel Kubani/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, speaks to reporters after an ECB meeting on Thursday in Vienna.

VIENNA, Oct. 4 — The European Central Bank stuck by its upbeat view of the region’s economy today, leaving interest rates steady and indicating that more time was needed to assess the fallout of the credit squeeze that has roiled financial markets for months.

The president of the bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, also declined to utter a word that might influence currency markets and hinted that politicians who have been calling for action to curb the rising euro should do the same.

“The exchange rate is a very important question that calls for verbal discipline,” Mr. Trichet said at a news conference in Vienna after one of the two meetings the bank holds each year outside its Frankfurt headquarters.

The central bank kept its main interest rate at 4 percent. In response, the euro barely budged, hovering around $1.41, just shy of the record level hit early this week.

In London, the Bank of England also kept official interest rates steady at 5.75 percent, offering no explanation. But the pound rose as some investors had worried that it might make a surprise cut after a run on Northern Rock, a mortgage bank, last month.

Recent surveys have shown shakier consumer and business confidence in Europe in the wake of the credit market turmoil, which has led to emergency rescues at two German banks and one in Britain. But Mr. Trichet focused on an economy that still seems to be expanding at a healthy, though not spectacular rate of slightly more than 2 percent a year.

“Corporate earnings and profitability have been sustained, employment growth has been robust and unemployment has fallen,” Mr. Trichet said.

Numerous European politicians, including Prime Minister Romano Prodi of Italy, the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the grouping of euro-zone finance ministers, have expressed concern that the strong euro will dampen European exports.

Mr. Sarkozy has even suggested the central bank follow the Federal Reserve’s surprise cut in interest rates last month.

Mr. Trichet only repeated the message that the Group of 7 central bankers and finance ministers made public at a meeting earlier this year, namely that the United States still has a “strong dollar” policy. With financial markets skeptical that the Bush administration wholeheartedly backs this policy, the message has barely altered the euro’s upward trend against the dollar.

One month after it abandoned a planned increase in borrowing costs in the face of credit market chaos, the European Central Bank gave little indication of when — or if — it would resuming lifting its benchmark rate. But Mr. Trichet did make clear that the bank’s next move was more likely to be up rather than down.

Under the treaties that created the euro, the bank’s chief priority is to fight inflation, which is now edging above 2 percent because of higher oil and food prices, slightly above the bank’s comfort zone. Over the last two years, the bank has steadily raised rates to ensure that accelerating growth does not lead to a spiral of rising prices as companies pass on the costs of more expensive raw materials to consumers or bid up the price of labor amid falling unemployment — dangers that Mr. Trichet said were still very much present in the euro area.

The bank did drop a reference from its monthly statement to interest rates being “on the accommodative side,” a sign that it has finished tightening credit. But Mr. Trichet repeatedly emphasized that the bank “stands ready to act” to ward off higher inflation with higher rates, even though it is clearly pausing to gather more information about the effects of the credit squeeze.

“As long as they are concerned about inflation, it doesn’t really matter how they characterize their stance on interest rates,” said Elga Bartsch, an economist with Morgan Stanley in London. “But they are on hold for now.”

One reason the bank may have altered its trajectory on interest rates is that credit markets have done the bank’s job for it over the last two months, economists said. As nervous banks and investors have curbed their lending, they have forced up the cost of borrowing, effectively creating the tighter credit conditions that central banks use to keep inflation under control.

Still, the bank has to preserve its options in case the outlook for inflation worsens — an entirely plausible scenario given escalating oil and commodity prices — while bearing in mind that higher interest rates could worsen the credit squeeze, now a preoccupation of banks and brokerage firms, and hurt manufacturers and other companies.

Mr. Trichet said the bank’s surveys showed more conservative lending to big corporations, a reflection of how merger and acquisition financing has become much more difficult in recent months, but said a fuller picture of the credit situation remained elusive.

That suggested that if the bank concludes the effect of tighter credit is minimal, it might nudge borrowing costs higher in the coming months.

“The way the bank has talked to us today, they can return to a path of higher interest rates at a later date without actually changing their minds,” said Audrey Childe-Freeman, chief Europe economist at CIBC World Markets in London.