Europe midday: Stocks track losses in Asia, politics in the spotlight

Stocks on the Continent have started the week slightly lower, tracking sharp losses in Asia overnight and with investors seemingly brushing-off a bounce on Wall Street last Friday.

Against that backdrop, investors were digesting the implications of the German CSU party's loss of its absolute majority in Bavaria at the weekend.

Despite sporting the lowest rate of unemployment in Germany, at 2.8%, the CSU, the main ally of Angela Merkel's ruling CDU, saw its support fall from 48% to 36%.

However, a solid showing for the 'Greens' might in fact help Merkel argue against a shift in her parties' towards the right, some observers said.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, negotiations at the weekend between Westminster and the European Union reportedly failed to yield the much-expected breakthrough on the UK's withdrawal talks ahead of Wednesday's meeting of the European Council.

As of 1125 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was dipping 0.28% or 1.10 points to 357.94, alongside a decline of 0.28% or 14.50 points to 5,081.8 for the French Cac-40.

Germany's Dax on the other hand had recovered from a swoon earlier and was up by 0.18% or 20.90 points at 11,544.82.

Overnight, the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Composite Index fell by 1.49% or 38.81 points to 2,568.10, alongside a drop of 1.87% or 423.36 points to 22,27130 on Tokyo's Nikkei-225.

In Italy, the central bank said that, in August, the country's stock of debt declined by €15.5bn from the previous month to reach €2.365trn.

Banco de Italia also reported a 0.6% year-on-year fall in government revenues for the year-to-date to reach €43.7bn.

Also on Monday, Italy was due to send its budget proposal for next year to Brussels for approval.

On the corporate front, the focus was on Abu Dhabi investor, Mubdala's, decision to scrap its planned €2.0bn initial public offering of oil refiner Cepsa in the wake of recent market volatility.

No other major economic data releases were scheduled for Monday in the euro area, although European Central Bank vicepresident, Luis de Guindos, was due to deliver a speech at 1800 BST, in Madrid.

For later in the session, at 1330 BST, investors were waiting on monthly US retail sales figures from the US Department Commerce.