MORNING BID EUROPE-A daily note from our Economics/Politics Editor

* A daily view from EMEA Economics & Politics Editor Mike Peacock The views expressed are his own.

LONDON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - The United States and some Gulf allies have launched air strikes inside Syria against Islamic State militants.

A combination of fighter, bomber and Tomahawk attack missiles sounds like a formidable barrage so if intelligence about where the militants are is good, a significant blow could have been dealt.

Washington said Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar were involved though their precise role is unclear. It made no mention of European involvement and Britain has said it was not part of it.

The targets included Raqqa city, the headquarters of Islamic State, an extremist Sunni Muslim force that has seized large expanses of territory in Iraq and Syria and proclaimed a caliphate.

U.S. President Barack Obama will be in New York later for the U.N. General Assembly where he will try to rally more nations behind his drive to take on IS.

Flash September PMI surveys for the euro zone, Germany and France will give the latest snapshot of how well the euro zone has recovered from a dismal second quarter of the year, if at all. China's equivalent has defied gloomy expectations by picking up momentum and edging into expansionary territory.

The Bundesbank said the German economy remains robust - it contracted in the second quarter - but that the boost German industry got in July from the fact that there were fewer school holidays during that month than in 2013 would have reversed in August.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Monday the bank stood ready to use additional unconventional tools to spur inflation and growth in the euro zone if needed.

But the nuclear option - printing money - remains politically and philosophically difficult for the ECB to accept and Draghi's call for governments to use fiscal policy to boost activity suggests the ECB may in fact have gone just about as far as it can to revive the euro economy.

After meeting French premier Manual Valls on Monday, Angela Merkel entertains Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras today. Athens is expected to begin negotiating some form of further debt relief with its euro zone partners before the year is out.

Greece has relied on a 240 billion-euro EU/IMF financing package since the second half of 2010 to stay afloat. Bailout funding from its euro zone partners ends in December while IMF aid will run out in the first quarter of 2016.

If it comes, further relief on Greece's debt, which is seen topping 177 percent of GDP this year, is likely to come in the form of stretched maturities and reduced interest rates.

There are political reasons to offer help: Opinion polls show Greece's main left opposition Syriza party, which opposes the bailout measures imposed, has widened its lead over conservatives in the ruling coalition.

The selection of a new president in early 2015 may lead to early elections given the opposition's pledge to block any candidate proposed by the government.

In Athens, Greece's ADEDY public sector union will stage a 24-hour strike against public sector reforms demanded by the country's EU/IMF lenders.

Merkel has a busy day. She is also due to speak at German industry federation BDI's annual "Day of German Industry" conference. So too are Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and new French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron.

British opposition Labour party leader Ed Miliband must grapple with the biggest issue of substance when he speaks to his party's annual conference today - whether to stick close to the centre ground where all nearly victorious parties camp themselves or provide a clear alternative to the ruling Conservatives by tacking left, calculating that the electorate might be receptive following the financial crisis and the behaviour of the banking sector.

So far, the party has promised fiscal responsibility. For instance, a pledge on a higher minimum wage was balanced by a tightening up of child benefit payments.

The spin is that Miliband will pledge to use a "mansion tax" on the most expensive properties to fund more spending in the National Health Service. One lesson of the Scottish referendum was that the intervention of business was crucial in determining the vote. It's a dangerous constituency to risk alienating.

Hungary's central bank has finally ended a two-year period of cutting interest rates every month leaving them at a record low 2.1 percent. It has a policy meeting today. There is no prospect of rates heading higher with the central bank saying it will hold until the end of next year unless inflation jumps.

At its quarterly monetary review, Denmark's central bank is likely to cut its economic growth forecast after the economy shrank in the second quarter of this year.

(editing by Andrew Heavens)