European stocks open moderately higher on Wednesday ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy statement, due after European trading hours at 18:00 GMT. The wording of the statement will be closely watched to see if the pledge to be "patient" will be removed and if there is any further indication on when the FED is going to hike rates.

At 09:30 a set of U.K. data including the Bank of England Minutes will be in the focus. At 10:00 GMT Eurozone's Trade Balance will be reported. At 12:30 U.K.'s Annual Budget Release will be released.

Yesterday's data showed that Eurozone's Consumer Price Inflation fell -0.3% last month, in line with expectations and unchanged from a preliminary estimate.

The FTSE 100 index is currently trading +0.38% quoted at 6,863.83 points. Germany's DAX 30 is trading higher slightly below 12,000 points at 11,988.36 points +0.06%. France's CAC 40 is currently trading at 5,029.56 points, +0.01%.