Coming off its best weekly performance since start of the year, the continent-wide STOXX might aim for another record high as traders await January retail sales data for the Eurozone later in the day.
Hawkish rhetoric from Fed speakers continued over the weekend, with San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly the latest to sound a warning on the inflationary threat.
The market largely expects Powell to be hawkish this week but given his testimony comes before the jobs report is released, he will likely aim to keep all options open.
Over in China, the country's leadership set a 5% target for economic growth this year, which analysts called conservative and pragmatic, as they kicked off the annual session of the National People's Congress.
In the corporate world, Italian state lender CDP has bid for the fixed-line network of former phone monopoly Telecom Italia, rivalling an offering from U.S. firm KKR.