On a day when media stocks were mostly higher, Mediaset, the Italian television broadcaster controlled by new Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, fell almost 4 per cent to €11.69.

The other big media loser was Dutch-based pan-European cable company UPC, which fell 5.4 per cent to €6.68 after it said a deal to get €1 billion from its parent UnitedGlobalCom would be renegotiated. While losses for the first-quarter were smaller than expected, revenues were below expectations. But UPC said it still expected to reach its sales target for 2001.

Technology stocks were higher with Nokia up 0.6 per cent to €35.30, Infineon up 1.25 per cent to €44.70 and ST Microelectronics up 1.7 per cent to €44.20.

Alcatel rose 2.1 per cent to €37.16 on reports that it planned to float 70-100 per cent of its Nexans cable division on June 13th, valuing the unit at €800 million. The exception was Ericsson, which fell 2.4 per cent to SKr62. Ericsson announced that it had shifted priority from getting new orders to bringing in money for those it had already won in a fight to return to positive cashflow.

Telecoms were mainly higher, with France Telecom up 1.2 per cent to €70.45, Telefonica up 2.25 per cent to €18.65 and Sonera up 3.3 per cent to €10.70.

Dutch supermarket group Ahold gained 1.3 per cent to €35.95 following first-quarter turnover that showed greater resilience than most brokers had expected.

Strong first-quarter turnover got firmly behind French utility Suez, and amid market talk of broker upgrades once the full figures emerge, the stock jumped 3.6 per cent to €35.20. Sector switching was said to be responsible for a fall of 0.7 per cent to €41.95 at German rival RWE.

UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, put on 4.4 per cent to SFr258 despite mixed results which included a 29 per cent fall in net profits, at the lower end of expectations.