Europe midday: Stocks mostly higher ahead of EU leaders' summit

Stocks across the Continent are for the most part moving higher at the end of the week as investors monitor the headlines coming out of a three-day European Union leaders' summit in Brussels.

Over the coming days, the leaders of the bloc's 27 states will try to thrash out an agreement on a proposed €750bn reconstruction fund.

Nonetheless, the varying positions of the EU's largest members, Eastern European ones and the so-called 'frugal' ones meant that expectations for a deal at the present meeting were on the low side.

"We’re entering these discussions with plenty of vigor, but I have to say that the differences remain very, very great, so I can’t predict whether we’ll reach an agreement here," said German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, as she headed into the summit.

"I expect very, very difficult negotiations."

Against that backdrop, as of 1230 BST the pan-European Stoxx 600 was edging up 0.06% to 372.36, alongside a gain of 0.28% to 12,911.05 for the German Dax, although Spain's Ibex 35 was 0.53% lower.

Yet some analysts were hopeful, with Oanda's Edward Moya telling clients: "Her comments may have been posturing, but they did sink stocks to their session lows.

"Negotiations are expected to be tough from the frugal four, but optimism is high that a breakthrough will be made at the two-day summit."

Elsewhere on the economic side of things, consumer price inflation in the euro area rose slightly last month despite dips in the bloc's second and third-largest economies, France and Italy.

According to Eurostat, the year-on-year rate of increase in headline consumer prices picked up from 0.1% for May to 0.3% in June, as expected by economists.