The best way (to anchor confidence in the euro) is to build up a track record of low inflation

Wim Duisenberg

But the ECB, it seems, has decided to act like Marshal Foch, at the battle of the Marne.

He sent the now famous despatch: "Hard pressed on my right. My centre is yielding. Impossible to manoeuvre. Situation excellent. I am attacking."

The words of Mr Duisenberg are not quite as inspirational as that - he is after all a central banker - but they do mark another step in the ECB's counterattack.

As he puts it in his introduction to the report: "The best way (to anchor confidence in the euro) is to build up a track record of low inflation."

A slap in the face

That sounds pretty mild but it is a slap in the face for those like the US Federal Reserve which have put pressure on the ECB to cut rates.

Wim Duisenberg: building up a track record

Mr Duisenberg went on to remark pointedly that "one of the advantages of the single currency is that the euro area is probably less vulnerable than in the past to economic disturbances elsewhere".

The ECB obviously feels that it has been put in place to keep inflation under control and that is what it is going to do.

The eurozone was after all created to be an economic superpower, and it doesn't intend to be a minor partner of the US.

Calls by the US government to cut rates in Europe to help the world's economy are therefore falling on deaf ears.

Standing firm

The Bundesbank's vice president Juergen Stark lent his support to the ECB by praising it for standing firm in the face of pressure to cut rates.

"The ECB is not a branch of the Fed. It comes to its own judgements from analysis and data, which it then has to answer for," he said.

That attitude may contain an element of schadenfreude, as the Federal Reserve hasn't got much of a track record of cutting its rates to help others.

Europeans might wonder, after being told for years about the wonders of America's economic miracle, why they should have to bail the US out now.

Of course all of this doesn't necessarily mean that the ECB is right to keep rates unchanged. Inflation may come down and European growth may be hit harder than expected by America's problems.

But it does mean that the ECB, which is still only two years old, is taking the long view.

It is trying to build an international reputation for independence and price stability and it seems to have decided this is ground it is happy to fight on.