Economic growth and fiscal consolidation are not contradictory and governments can still rein in their public deficits without undercutting growth, ECB chief Mario Draghi said.
"There is absolutely no contradiction between a growth compact and a fiscal compact," Mr Draghi said after the ECB's policy meeting in Barcelona.
"We have to put growth back at the centre of the agenda," he added.
He made his comments after the European Central Bank held its main interest rate at 1% today as expected.
Stubborn inflation is offsetting pressure to loosen borrowing costs further to support the weak euro zone economy.
The ECB also said the interest rate on its deposit facility would remain at 0.25%, and the rate on the marginal lending facility would stay at 1.75%.
The comments came as a growing number of euro zone countries are beginning to baulk at the belt-tightening measures prescribed by governments in a bid to rein in deficits as part of a recently agreed "fiscal compact."
There have been massive protests in Greece and in embattled Italy and Spain against such austerity drives.
In France, leading presidential Socialist candidate Francois Hollande has called for a re-negotiation of the fiscal compact to include growth measures.
It was Mr Draghi himself who first talked of a "growth compact" to complement the fiscal compact last month but he rejected any idea that growth should be nurtured at the cost of bringing down deficits.
Easing up on fiscal consolidation would "not be much help," he said.
The ECB chief also said today that the bank's governing council did not discuss any changes to interest rates. He said they did discuss its general monetary policy, which he said, was accomodative in the face of considerable uncertainty.
Mr Draghi also said that the eurozone economy was likely to recover this year but that the outlook was subject to downside risks.
"Looking ahead, economic activity is expected to recover gradually over the course of the year. At the same time, the economic outlook continues to be subject to downside risks," Mr Draghi said.
He added that inflation rates were likely to stay above 2% this year, higher than the central bank's target, but that developments remained in line with price stability.
Meanwhile, the ECB's bond purchase programme remains in place but it is up to governments to bring their own financing costs under control by implementing structural reforms, the ECB President said.
He said the bond buying programme was "neither infinite nor eternal".
There is a growing expectation in financial markets that the ECB will have to ride to the euro zone's rescue with Spain under intense pressure and the Dutch government in disarray.
A Reuters poll taken last week showed three-quarters of economists saw the ECB restarting its bond purchases within the next three months.
In an effort to calm the eurozone crisis, the ECB has so far reversed last year's rate hikes to bring euro zone borrowing costs back down to an all-time low of 1% and embarked on a hotly contested programme of buying up the bonds of debt-mired countries so as to ease their borrowing costs.
Most recently, two long-term refinancing operations (LTROs) in December and February pumped more than €1 trillion into the banking system in a bid to avert a dangerous credit squeeze.
An 8,000-strong security force was deployed in Barcelona for today's meeting and the authorities temporarily reintroduced border controls to prevent the entry of potential trouble-makers.
There were no signs of trouble outside the meeting venue, however, where only a small handful of banner-wielding protesters could be seen.
With unemployment running at a record 24.4% and the country officially back in recession, pressure for Spain to stabilise its public finances is driving spending cuts and unpopular austerity measures that are fuelling social unrest.
