Europe's main stock markets were down slightly at the start of trading on Tuesday, as the market environment remained dominated by a wait-and-see attitude on the eve of the US Federal Reserve's decisions.

In Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.33% to 7,058.72 points at 08:32 GMT. In London, the FTSE 100 gave up 0.13% and in Frankfurt, the Dax was down 0.5%.

The EuroStoxx 50 index is down 0.38%, the FTSEurofirst 300 0.07% and the Stoxx 600 0.42%.

Investors prefer to stay on the sidelines ahead of the decisions to be announced by the Fed on Wednesday. While the consensus is for a 25bp rate hike, markets will be paying particular attention to the tone of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's statement and speech.

Announcements from the Bank of England and the European Central Bank (ECB) will follow on Thursday, and unlike the Fed, they are expected to maintain the pace of rate hikes at half a percentage point.

Following Monday's announcement of accelerating inflation in Spain in January, France's consumer price index also rose, to 7% year-on-year after +6.7% in December.

"There is an emerging divergence between the Fed and the ECB," said Mediolanum International Funds. "Forward-looking inflation data continues to head lower in the US. In Europe, it's clear that the data is not yet doing the same."

On the value side, Seb and Elis gained 7.09% and 2.78% respectively after releasing their results.

In the red, FDJ dropped 5.81%, after HSBC downgraded its rating to "light", while Ubisoft

(-2.93%) was penalized by Jefferies' downgrade to "underperform" from "buy".

Italian bank UniCredit (+8.15%) jumped to the top of the Stoxx after pledging to pay investors 5.25 billion euros for its annual results.

UBS lost 2.39%, the leading Swiss bank anticipating an "uncertain" year with inflation and rising interest rates. (Laetitia Volga, edited by Kate Entringer)