Italy’s prime minister has said the European Central Bank could “help Europe give a message of a new economic direction”, amid reports that the ECB will announce plans on Thursday to spend €50bn (£38bn) a month on government bonds as part of a programme to kickstart growth in the eurozone.

Matteo Renzi told the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday that help from the Frankfurt-based central bank would be welcome. There was speculation on Wednesday that the ECB was considering spending €50bn a month over the next one to two years, which could see an investment of more than €1tn.

“I think the first steps of the [European] commission and the discussion in the next days of the European Central Bank – let me be very clear, I respect the independence of the European Central Bank – could help Europe to give a message of new economic direction,” Renzi said.

With the 19-nation eurozone already in deflation, Mario Draghi, the ECB head, is expected to follow the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan with a sovereign bond buying programme – also known as quantitative easing.

Draghi and the ECB have been discussing the possibility of using the bank’s balance sheet to pump money into the eurozone banking system, by acquiring government debt from financial institutions, since the summer. But the plans have met fierce resistance from Germany, which worries that its citizens would be left nursing other countries’ debts.

Expectations are mounting that Draghi will push the button on measures to inject cash into the economy. But if the ECB steps back from such a move the markets could be disappointed. It would also signal a shift in tone among eurozone policymakers, away from austerity towards a more expansive monetary policy.

Ken Rogoff, economics professor at Harvard and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said: “If the ECB does not move, the currency will go up. It [the bond buying programme] will not be big enough to push up inflation.”

Speaking later on Wednesday to CNBC at Davos, Renzi stressed he was not interfering in the independence of the ECB. He added: “I believe this is the time in which we can invest in a different idea of Europe.

“The idea is Germany is a great country and the rest of Europe is in crisis. My personal point of view is this is not correct vision, also because if we don’t invest in a different idea of Europe, the first problem will be for the Germany in subsequent years. So I believe absolutely important that Europe find a common solution in the respect of independency of European Central Bank, but in a different idea of economic politics.”

In a speech that meet warm support in Davos, Renzi said how he visited Paris this month for the march following the terror attacks, and saw evidence that Europe was not just a single currency. He said Italy needed a new constitution and a new electoral system to give it the ability to pick a leader for five years.

The chair of Swiss bank UBS, Axel Weber, also fired a warning shot at European politicians on Wednesday, telling Davos attendees that the eurozone could unravel unless they implement closer fiscal union. Appearing on a panel, he said the viability of the euro would be threatened unless there was more European integration.

“If that does not happen, the single currency area will become an increasingly difficult project to run,” said Weber, a former Bundesbank president who served on the ECB’s governing council for several years.

The current “mismatch” between a single monetary policy and a lack of fiscal integration is not sustainable, he added. But Weber said this was also the time when European gave more stress to the importance of growth and public-private initiatives, not just the discipline of austerity.

On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada cut its interest rate in a shock move to counter the spectre of low inflation that is also haunting the eurozone. Ending the longest period of unchanged rates in Canada since 1950, the central bank cut its overnight rate to 0.75% from 1%, where it had been since September 2010, and it dramatically slashed its inflation and growth forecasts for the coming year.