The resolve of the authorities on both sides of the Atlantic to support the euro will be tested this week. The threat of concerted intervention the central banks in the US, Europe, Britain and Japan helped the euro stay above its historic lows on Friday, despite the blow delivered to the single currency project by the no vote in the Danish referendum.

Any crack in this united front is expected to trigger further selling of the single currency which closed at $0.88 on Friday, a safe distance from its recent record lows of $0.844. The US Federal Reserve meets tomorrow to review interest rates, while the Bank of England starts a two-day monetary policy meeting on Wednesday. The European Central Bank will hold a similar meeting on Thursday. "A Fed sitting with a tightening bias and ECB on hold would raise some doubts about what the central banks are trying to do," said Mr Jim McCormick, a currency strategist at JP Morgan.

Economists in Dublin believe that, despite having left the market in no doubt that the next rate move will be upwards, the ECB will not move this week. The bank may take the view that keeping rates where they are will support European economic growth and underpin the euro indirectly, according to Mr John Beggs, the chief economist with AIB Group Treasury. "Over the course of the year the ECB has tended to leave at least six weeks between interest rate moves. Given that the last rate increase took place on August 31st, it seems unlikely that the bank will move as early as next week," according to Mr Alan McQuaid, economist with Bloxham Stockbrokers.

Mr McQuaid also points out that the ECB has always said that it will only intervene in the currency markets within its overall monetary policy objective of controlling inflation. Various indications from euro zone countries, including Ireland, are that price pressure is increasing, which argues in favour of a move sooner rather than later. The Bank of England and the Federal Reserve are expected to leave rates unchanged. A raft of data suggesting that the racing US economy has slowed to a more moderate speed have taken the pressure off the Federal Reserve to resume a rate-rising campaign that has been on hold since May.

The upcoming meeting is also the final one before November's presidential election. Fed officials, who prefer to avoid the political fray, will be more than happy to maintain a low profile with a decision to keep rates steady.

If there is any suspense over the meeting, however, it is over whether the Fed will indicate that its view of the "balance of risks" in the economy has shifted.

Although the Fed has kept its monetary policy steady since the May rate rise, the bank has maintained that the balance of risks were weighted toward higher inflation, which signalled that it felt its next move was more likely to be a rate increase than a rate cut.