RPT-WRAPUP 3-More credit than complaint for ECB at eurozone meet

(Repeats late Monday story without changes)

By David Milliken and Niclas Mika

BRUSSELS, July 7 (Reuters) - The recent rise in ECB interest rates inspired more acquiescence than ire when finance ministers of the euro zone met European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet on Monday to discuss the threat from record oil prices.

In a first meeting since the inflation-fighting central bank increased its benchmark borrowing rate last week, most ministers seemed keen to keep the peace and acknowledge inflation as a serious worry, even if the risk of slower growth was too.

Little sign emerged that France had signed up new converts to its public questioning of the utility of a rate rise. "We're all worried about inflation," Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the meeting, told a news conference. He said he did not consider the rate rise, the first in over a year, to be the start of a new series.

"Inflation isn't just a concern for the monetary authorities but for the political authorities as well," Juncker, who is also prime minister of Luxembourg, said, adding that the ECB had not been criticised at the meeting in Brussels.

"We all felt that the ECB is quite right to stress the need to anchor inflation expectations in the medium term in as forthright a way as it has done hitherto," he said.

"We did not discuss the possible shape of monetary policy in the future, but I do not consider last Thursday's decision to be the beginning of a new cycle of upward increases in interest rates. But this is a matter for the fiercely independent ECB."

Trichet refused further public comment on the ECB rate rise, which is sensitive because it carries a risk too of compounding an economic slowdown that Juncker said was clearly occurring.