The European Central Bank plans to move ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve on Thursday in cutting interest rates, making the eurozone the biggest rich-world economy to start easing borrowing costs for businesses and consumers as the inflation that arose after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine slowly recedes.

ECB President Christine Lagarde and other officials have made it clear that a quarter-point rate cut from the current record high of 4% is more than likely when the bank's 26-member governing council meets at the institution's skyscraper headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany.