FRANKFURT (AFP) ??” The European Central Bank is widely reckon uponed to hold its key interest rates steady this week.

FRANKFURT (AFP) ??” The European Central Bank is widely reckon uponed to hold its key interest rates steady this week, as it weighs the economic consecutions of surging oil prices -- higher inflation or weaker produce -- analysts said.

In a individual of 31 economists by AFP and its financial stranges subsidiary AFX, all predicted the guardian of the euro would clutch its key rates steady at its regular monthly policy-setting meeting in succession Thursday, coinciding with a meeting of OPEC (Organization of seneca oil Exporting Countries) in Beirut.

The ECB has held its central "refi" refinancing rate steady at 20 percent for a year now, since June 2003

But with oil prices pushing continually higher as a result of the deadly attacks in Saudi Arabia at the weekend, the financial markets and ECB watchers will be listening closely to what the bank's president Jean-Claude Trichet has to say about the economic risks of