The FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares ended down 0.05 per cent at a provisional 859.54 points after being down to as low as 850.93 points and up to as high as 864.68 points in the day.
The index is down around 43 per cent for the year.
"We are in a situation where the market is not really doing much, we have had some ups and we have had some downs. We have a market which is in recession trading and there is no real big story out there which is going to give us any particular direction," said Peter Dixon, strategist at Commerzbank.
Drugmakers fell after the EU ruling.
GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis were down 1.4-2.7 per cent.
Energy stocks were in the doldrums. BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Tullow Oil were down 0.4-2.4 per cent.
"I think the expectation is that oil is going to come down further. There is a lot of discussion that oil is going to head towards $30 a barrel, if that talk persists the market is clearly going to mark down oil and commodity stocks," said Mr Dixon.
Mining stocks were the biggest gainers on the index. Rio Tinto gained 16 per cent after the group, saddled with nearly $US40 billion in net debt, said it would cut 13 per cent of its workforce, slash capital spending by more than half and sell more assets as it battles a collapse in commodity prices.
Anglo American, Antofagasta, Xstrata and BHP Billiton were 5.6-8.1 per cent higher.
Across Europe, the FTSE 100 index was down 0.5 per cent, while Germany's DAX was up 0.5 and France's CAC 40 was up 0.7 per cent.
Share market opens 2pc higher
Markets are battered again
Investors holding Tennessee stocks take a beating
Shares rise on Wall St election bounce
