London - Europe's equities rose further Friday, mirroring gains on Wall Street, after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi vowed to continue its stimulus programme for "as long as needed" to stabilise prices.
Investors also kept an eye on developments in Greece, which is still struggling to hammer out a debt reform agreement with creditors.
In midday deals, London's benchmark FTSE 100 index of leading companies added 0.41 percent to 7,001.50 points.
In Paris, the CAC 40 index rose 0.55 percent to 5,055.20 points and Frankfurt's DAX 30 won 0.35 percent to 11,599 compared with the close on Thursday, when many traders were away for a public holiday in both European capitals.
Euro zone bond markets meanwhile calmed following a steep sell-off in recent weeks.
"After almost seven years of a debilitating sequence of crises, firms and households are very hesitant to take on economic risk," said Draghi in a speech at an International Monetary Fund forum.
"For this reason quite some time is needed before we can declare success, and our monetary policy stimulus will stay in place as long as needed for its objective to be fully achieved on a truly sustained basis," he said.
With the economy and inflation recently picking up, there has been speculation that the ECB would wind up early its unprecedented 1.1 trillion euro ($1.3 trillion) asset-purchase program, widely known as quantitative easing (QE).
AFP
