Russia, Ukraine and the European Union are set to resume gas talks in Brussels on Friday aimed at restoring Russian gas supplies to neighboring Ukraine, the Russian energy minister said Thursday.

The spokeswoman of energy minister Alexander Novak told AFP "we confirm" the meeting is going ahead.

Seat, the Spanish subsidiary of German group Volkswagen, installed over 500,000 cars made in Spain with the now infamous software to cheat pollution emission tests, daily newspaper El Pais reported Thursday.

Volkswagen faces a U.S. criminal investigation and worldwide legal action after admitting that as many as 11 million of its diesel cars are equipped with software capable of fooling official pollution tests.

Consumer confidence in Germany is being dampened by Europe's refugee crisis as consumers worry about the economic consequences of the huge influx of migrants, a poll found on Thursday. 

"Consumer optimism is waning somewhat," market research company GfK said in a statement. 

Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn resigned Wednesday over a pollution cheating scandal that has sparked a U.S. criminal investigation and worldwide legal action with unfathomable financial consequences for the auto giant.

"I am shocked by the events of the past few days. Above all, I am stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group," Winterkorn said in a statement issued by the carmaker.

Portugal's statistics agency on Wednesday dramatically revised up the eurozone nation's public deficit for 2014, mostly due to a major bank rescue.

The INE agency revised up the deficit from 4.5 percent to 7.2 percent of economic output, way above the EU's three-percent limit.

Growth in the eurozone economy slowed in September but despite the monthly dip, it still expanded at the fastest quarterly rate in four years, a key business survey showed Wednesday.

Data company Markit said the flash reading of its eurozone Purchasing Managers Index fell to 53.9 points in September from 54.3 points in August. 

Oil prices retreated in Asia Wednesday after a key measure of manufacturing in China fell to its lowest level in more than six years, signalling weaker demand in the world's top energy consumer.

The prospects of weaker demand come as the oversupplied global oil market is already troubled by expectations Iranian crude will return within months if Tehran is found to have complied with a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions.

Britain's finance minister George Osborne called Tuesday for closer business ties with China as he visited its commercial hub of Shanghai, despite slowing growth and stock market volatility in the world's second-largest economy.

Osborne, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, visited the Shanghai stock exchange, which has seen its benchmark index plummet nearly 40 percent since June as a bubble bursts, while worries over flagging Chinese growth have shaken world markets.

Shares in Volkswagen plunged further on Tuesday as the German auto giant faced fast-spreading worldwide investigations and a potentially huge financial hit from the snowballing scandal about cheating U.S. pollution tests.

VW shares shed as much as 5.3 percent to hit an intraday low 126.60 euros in the first hour of trading on the Frankfurt stock exchange, after already sinking 17.14 percent the day before.

Oil prices fell in Asia Tuesday, reversing sharp gains in the previous session, hit by a strong dollar and persistent concerns over a global supply glut.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate for October delivery, which expires at the end of the trading day, eased 58 cents to $46.10 in afternoon trade after spiking 4.1 percent at its close in New York on Monday.