Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, and his colleagues on the central bank’s Governing Council, surprised investors in November by cutting the euro zone’s main interest rate by a quarter of a point to a record low of 0.25 percent, in the face of concerns that Europe might be headed toward a Japan-style deflationary quagmire. The central bank acted after the euro zone inflation rate fell to 0.7 percent. The bank tries to hold inflation at just below 2 percent.

Some economists have argued that falling inflation in the euro zone, coming after five years of recession or very slow growth, means that the currency bloc faces an acute risk of deflation — a sustained and broad fall in prices that can destroy the profits of companies and the jobs they provide.

Other economists say they believe that the slowing inflation is merely a sign that wages are falling in countries like Spain and Greece, where labor costs had become too high for companies to compete in the international marketplace.

Mr. Draghi, who has cautioned that the euro crisis will not be over until the labor market begins to recover, has more recently sought to play down the risk of deflation, perhaps to hold in reserve the possibility of a last major rate cut, to zero.

The 0.7 percent inflation rate most likely came as a surprise to the European Central Bank. Mr. Draghi had played down the significance of the 0.8 percent December figure, saying that a statistical quirk in the German services data for that month had pushed it lower and that January would probably show more upward pressure on prices.