Some caution prevailed ahead of debt auctions in Italy and Spain, the next focus of the region's long-running debt crisis. On Thursday, Spain aims to raise between 4 and 5 billion, while on Friday, Italy would offer up to 4.75 billion euros of fixed-rate bonds.
At 1021 GMT, the FTSEuro first 300 index of top European shares was flat at 1,027.52 points after touching a high of 1,029.32, the highest since early August. The index surged 1.8 percent in the previous session.
Charts showed the index faced strong technical resistance at 1,028 points - its intermediate high in October 2011, a 61.8 percent retracement of a fall last summer and a level around the 200-day moving average. It tried several times this month to convincingly break the level but failed to stay above that.
"One would expect a lot of resistance here and some retracement from here will not be surprising. The converse of that would also be incredibly significant and show that bulls are really taking control of this market," said Bill McNamara, technical analyst at Charles Stanley.
"The fact that the index has rallied strongly since its November lows implies that it has an upside bias."
Banking shares extended gains, up 0.8 percent, after rising 3.6 percent in the previous session after Fitch said on Tuesday it did not expect to cut France's triple-A credit rating this year, but added countries under review such as Italy or Spain could be downgraded by one or two notches.
The French blue-chip CAC-40 led developed market index gainers, up 0.5 percent.
Investors waited for Italian and Spanish debt auctions this week to see at what rate they raise debts. There are concerns the euro zone debt crisis could spread to the two countries.
"If the auctions go reasonably well, investors will just leave the issue on the back burner and concentrate on the quarterly results season," said Keith Bowman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
"If we were to see a badly received auction, then that could certainly cause further concerns."
Among other sectors, food and beverages shares fell 1 percent, with Unilever down 2.5 percent after BofA Merrill Lunch cut its rating on the stock to "under perform".