european markets are heading for a lower open thursday as global markets focus on economic data from the region and the latest signals from the us federal reserve on inflation and interest rates on wednesday minutes from the feds last meeting in december were released showing the central bank remained committed to higher interest rates for some time the minutes prompted us markets to give up earlier gains in the trading session and us stock futures were flat overnight european markets closed higher on wednesday as inflation data from france and germany indicated that consumer price increases across the euro zone are slowing