European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet has said there is some evidence of upward pressure on inflation in the euro zone. He was speaking to reporters in Frankfurt after the bank kept key lending rates unchanged as expected at 1%. Mr Trichet said the pressure on prices was 'short-term' and mainly due to higher energy prices, adding that the bank had not changed its long-term forecasts. Analysts had widely anticipated the rate decisions and waited for news on the ECB's programme of public debt purchases following a string of bond issues by Italy, Portugal and Spain, seen as at risk on the money markets. Spain passed a key test with its first bond auction of 2011 today, selling €3 billion in five-year bonds while Italy raised €6 billion through five- and 15-year bond sales a day after Portugal raised €1.25 billion. Analysts stressed that the sales did not spell an end to the euro zone debt crisis and pointed to tens of billions of euros that would still have to be raised by heavily indebted countries later this year. The ECB has helped indebted countries by buying government bonds on secondary markets and providing unlimited amounts of cash loans to the commercial banks, some of which have become 'addicted' to the funds in the words of many economists. But ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet has become more and more outspoken in telling euro zone governments to get their finances in order, saying they must do more rather than rely on the ECB to save the day with its bond purchases. Europe could also get help from China and Japan which have pledged to support the euro zone by buying euro zone countries' bonds. Portugal and Spain have both insisted they will not need to ask the EFSF for help and pointed to the bond sales this week as supporting evidence.