Europe's main stock markets sank at the start of trade on Monday, with sentiment hit hard by failed Doha talks and the subsequent slump in oil prices.

Oil plunged Monday a day after top producers failed to reach a deal in Doha to cap output, fanning fresh fears over a supply glut that has plagued the market.

Prices had rebounded last week on hopes the OPEC exporters' club and other major players, including Russia, would agree to freeze output levels at Sunday's meeting.

Thousands of Kuwait's oil workers began an open-ended strike on Sunday in protest at plans to cut their wages, action which saw the emirate's crude production plunge.

A spokesman for the Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC), Saad al-Azemi, said on Twitter that "average production reached 1.1 million" barrels in Kuwait on Sunday.

Argentina seeks to end 15 years of financial isolation on Monday when it sets out to borrow cash on international credit markets for the first time since a 2001 default.

The country is looking to boost its struggling economy and settle a 15-year lawsuit by US investment funds which its ex-president Cristina Kirchner branded "vultures."

Major oil producers began talks in Qatar on Sunday to try to reach a deal on capping production to boost prices, despite Iran's absence.

Cuban President Raul Castro vowed Saturday never to pursue "privatizing formulas" or "shock therapy," setting the tone for a Communist Party congress convened to review progress in revamping the island's Soviet-style economy.

"Cuba will never permit the application of so-called shock therapies, which are frequently applied to the detriment of society's most humble classes," he said in a speech opening the congress, which only happens every five years and stretches on for several days.

The international community is not sticking to its promises to lift sanctions on Iran in the wake of the nuclear deal, the country's central bank governor said Friday.

The International Monetary Fund said Friday that the fiscal projections underpinning Greece's proposals for moving ahead in its bailout program are not realistic.

Poul Thomsen, director of the IMF's European Department, raised questions about the forecast that Greece could maintain a 3.5 percent budget surplus for years as part of its plan for debt relief from European Union creditors.

A new multilateral lender set up by the BRICS nations has approved its first set of loans valued at $811 million for renewable energy projects in four of its member countries, according to the bank.

Iran's oil minister will not join an Iranian delegation at a meeting this weekend of major crude producers aimed at negotiating a production freeze, the oil ministry said on Friday.