Europe open: Italian debt, euro retreat after Eurogroup gives thumbs-down to Rome's budget

European stocks have started the morning lower, weighed down by renewed concerns around Italy's sovereign debt pile and tracking sharp drops on most Asian bourses overnight on the back of geopolitical tensions between the US and China.

At Monday evening's so-called Eurogroup meeting, several finance ministers raised concerns around Italy's proposed budget deficit target of 2.4% of gross domestic product for 2019 announced on 28 September.

On a related note, earlier on Monday, the economic head of Italy's League party, Claudio Borghi, said in a radio interview that his country would be better outside of the euro.

Against that backdrop, as of 0918 BST the benchmark Stoxx 600 was trading lower by 0.46% or 1.78 points at 382.16, alongside a 0.57% or 70.81 point fall for the German Dax to 12,267.35 while Milan's FTSE Mibtel was retreating by 1.11% or 227.78 points to 20,382.36.

In parallel, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Italian government note was higher by 10 basis points at 3.40%, with that on similarly-dated Greek debt up by nine basis points to 4.31%.

Euro/dollar meanwhile was slipping 0.45% to 1.15263.

Commenting on the price action on Tuesday, Markets.com's chief market analyst, Neilson Wilson, said: "Markets remain very much on edge following last week's budget proposal for a deficit of 2.4%.

"Talk of a fresh crisis seems overblown at present, but it does look as though the EU and the Italian government are set for a major clash that will have far-reaching ramifications for the EU and the Italian economy, even if it does look rather like markets are getting overly twitchy over a couple of percentage points in the deficit."

Also on Monday evening, the US Navy accused China's military of "unsafe and unprofessional" behaviour at the weekend around one of the reefs occupied by the Asian giant in the South China Sea.

Against that backdrop, both Asian stock markets and emerging market currencies saw selling pressure overnight, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng erasing 2.38% to 27,126.38 and Indonesia's rupiah falling past the 25,000 mark for the first time since 1998.

The economic calendar was light on Tuesday, with only euro area factory gate prices and Irish unemployment data due out at 1000 BST and 1100 BST, respectively.

Later in the session, US Federal Reserve vice-chairman Randal Quarles was set to testify before a Senate committee with his boss, Jerome Powell, set to deliver a speech a few hours afterwards.

Akoz Nobel was in the spotlight on Tuesday after the paint-maker said it would return €5.5bn to shareholders following the sale of its speciality chemicals unit.

Farther afield, Australia's Latitude Financial, which was part-owned by Deutsche Bank, decided to postpone an initial public offering, partly on account of market conditions.