Europe open: Stocks recover their poise ahead of central bank decisions

Markets bounced back at the start of the session, with investors apparently recovering their calm following Monday's sharp drop in technology stocks and ahead of the US central bank's policy announcement due the next day.

"The quiet start to the week in terms of news flow and economic data combined with the UK election result didn’t provide much reason for optimism on Monday, although it was the sell-off in tech that appeared to be the greatest drag. Whether this is a temporary correction in a sector that has performed extraordinarily this year or something more is yet to be seen but nothing suggests to me that the latter is the case," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda.

As of 0817 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was higher by 0.36% to 388.0, alongside a rise of 0.35% to 12,735.67 for Germany's Dax and a gain of 0.20% to 5,251.23 in Paris's Cac-40.

Movements in the other main asset classes were largely muted early on Monday morning, with front month Brent crude oil futures edging higher by 0.23% to $48.40 a barrel on the ICE, while the euro was up by 0.06% to 1.1208.

On the political front, in an interview with the FT Europe's lead Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier warned the UK not to "waste" more time.

Next week would mark three months since Article 50 was triggered and no negotiations had yet taken place, he said.

Acting as a backdrop, investors were looking out to the US Federal Reserve's policy announcement on Wednesday, with rate-setters in Washington DC widely expected to hike their main policy rate by 25 basis points to a range of between 1.0% and 1.25%.

As expected, Spain's national statistics office confirmed a preliminary estimate that consumer prices in the Mediterranean country were unchanged last month, having risen by 2.0% year-on-year during the previous month.

French non-farm payrolls grew by 0.4% or 89,700 quarter-on-quarter during the first three months of 2017, according to INSEE.

Still on the economic calendar for Tuesday, Germany's ZEW institute was set to publish its economic confidence index for the month of June.

Meanwhile, Germany's Fraport indicated that airport passenger numbers grew by 5.7% year-on-year in May, as cargo increased 5.1%.

In parallel, Air France reported a 6.1% increase in its May traffic.

France's Engie announced its intention to sell its 10% stake in India's Petronet LNG for a value of €410.0m.