MILAN (Reuters) - European shares slipped in early deals on Monday, led by weakness in commodities-related stocks, though deal talks elsewhere offered some support with Vodafone up nearly 3 percent.
The STOXX 600 fell 0.6 percent, adding to a slight drop seen on Friday. In spite of the losses the pan-European index remains up nearly 1 percent so far in January, on course for its third month of gains in a row.
Vodafone confirmed it was in talks to merge it India unit with Idea while British engineering firm Atkins WS jumped more than 6 percent on a report of a $4 billion merger approach.
Europe's mining and oil and gas indexes were the biggest laggards, however, both down around 0.9 percent, as crude prices fell and copper eased below eight-week peaks.
Among top losers were oil products storage company Vopak and refiner Neste. Goldman Sachs downgraded both stocks to sell.
(Reporting by Danilo Masoni, Editing by Vikram Subhedar)
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