European Central Bank (ECB) policymakers meet on Thursday with fading price pressures and weaker economic activity in the eurozone nudging them towards making another cut to interest rates.
The 26 members of the governing council are gathering in Slovenia, as they make one of their regular tours away from the ECB's headquarters in Frankfurt, reports BSS.
ECB President Christine Lagarde arrived ahead of her colleagues, "checking on prices" at a market in the capital Ljubljana, she said in a video posted on social media on Tuesday.
What she heard from traders might well have reassured her -- recent data show that inflation in the eurozone has slowed considerably.
In Slovenia, the annual rate of consumer price rises was a mere 0.6 percent in September.
For the whole of the eurozone, the figure was 1.8 percent -- the first time it has been below the ECB's two-percent target in three years.
After cutting rates twice already this year, including at their last meeting in September, policymakers initially signalled a preference to wait until December to cut again.
But September's below-expectations reading has added to the sense that consumer prices are back under control after they soared in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"Victory against inflation is in sight," French central bank governor and ECB rate-setter Francois Villeroy de Galhau said last week.
"A cut is very likely," he said of Thursday's meeting, adding that "it will not be the last".