A meeting of oil cartel Opec and US jobs data will take centre stage this week, with budget airline Ryanair and UK telecoms firm Cable & Wireless heading a dwindling quarterly earnings schedule.
Investors hope a big rise in oil ouput can tame soaring crude prices, and will seek clues on how gradual the tightening of US monetary policy might be.
Belgian bank KBC and UK metals and chemicals firm Johnson Matthey will also report earnings in the week that starts slow with bank holidays in London and New York.
Investors in banks will be on the lookout for any forecasts at Deutsche Bank's shareholders meeting on Wednesday and UBS's analyst meeting on Friday.
Shareholders meetings at French software maker Dassault Systems on Wednesday, and at telecoms equipment giant Alcatel and French IT services group Atos on Friday may offer optimistic comments for the technology sector.
Strategists hope investors will put aside worries about security risks, high oil prices and the prospect of rising US interest rates, and revert their attention to solid corporate fundamentals.
But some said equity markets may experience another few weeks of range-bound and volatile trading before this happens.
"European markets are still waiting for stronger directional cues that are unlikely to come until the end of this week, when the US payrolls should set the scene for stronger stocks and weaker bonds as the US recovery picture continues to unfold," said David Brown, chief European economist at Bear Stearns.
The European Central Bank holds a policy meeting on Thursday, but almost all economists expect it to leave interest rates unchanged at two percent.
The FTSE Eurotop 300 index of pan-European blue chips was off 0.6 percent by mid-morning on Friday, showing gains of 3.2 percent since the start of the year, but still 4.2 percent shy of a 22-month peak set nearly six weeks ago.
Oil prices are likely to remain the wildcard of financial markets, even after Thursday's comments by Opec's president that the cartel was considering a big output increase to make a "psychological impact".
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