FRANKFURT (MktNews) - The European Central Bank should keep its official interest rates unchanged for now but could decide to cut rates when the eurozone harmonised inflation rate (HICP) falls to 2.2%, which could happen in June or July, Bundesbank council member Klaus-Dieter Kuehbacher said in an interview with the German magazine Focus Money. "The ECB will do nothing as long as (HICP is above this level)," Kuehbacher told the magazine, according to a summary of the interview made available in advance of publication. The HICP rate stood at 2.4% in January but is expected to fall to 2.2% and below in coming months. A possible rate cut could be coupled with concerns about the strength of the European economy in 2002, Kuehbacher added. "In such a case, the cut must be 50 basis points (for Europe) to be a locomotive (for the world economy)," Kuehbacher said. But for the moment, the ECB should keep rates unchanged, Kuehbacher advised. "The ECB should not cut interest rates so soon." "It is important for the ECB as a young institution to build up confidence," he said. "An element of such a process is a policy of a steady hand (on interest rates)," he continued. "ECB policy did not follow this principle at every stage last year," he argued, criticising the series of small rate hikes that the ECB undertook through 2000. Kuehbacher has no direct influence on the ECB monetary policy but as a member of the Bundesbank council advises Bundesbank President Ernst Welteke, who sits on the ECB Governing Council.