"Believe me, (ECB President Jean-Claude) Trichet is providing Europe with the necessary liquidity to start down the road of growth," Pianalto said in an interview published in Italian weekly financial newspaper Borsa & Finanza.

She was responding to a question about criticism of Trichet and the ECB for being too inactive while the US Federal Reserve has been quicker to change monetary policy.

"If the European Central Bank has adopted a different monetary policy to ours, then it will have had its reasons," Pianalto said. "Don't forget that the eurozone economy is going through a completely different phase to the American one."

Pianalto, who debates US monetary policy on the US Federal Reserve's rate-setting committee, reiterated comments made in a speech in Milan last week on the US budget deficit.