The EU's annual budget and eurozone representation on the international stage will be top of the agenda, but officials say there is little chance of an agreement.

Meanwhile in London, the political row over tax harmonisation escalated as the Conservative opposition accused Labour of hypocrisy over the issue.

Franco-German rift

EU member states are in dispute over whether national central banks should lose their places as EU representatives on the world stage.

German and France are at loggerheads over the issue.

"Germany hates the idea, so what are the chances of a result which Germany cannot live with?" said one official.

France believes that central bankers should not take part in G7 talks.

Budget divisions

Neither is there likely to be any consensus on the EU's Ecu85bn ($100bn) budget for 2000-2006.

Eight countries want to freeze expenditure as other central and east European countries join the EU.

The poorest EU members, Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal fear this will lead to cutbacks in their EU grants.

"We will not I think reach conclusions or decisions tomorrow," said one EU official.

Tax break limits

In London, the UK government is reportedly thinking of signing up to proposals for greater coordination between member states over the tax breaks available to particular industries.

This could seriously undermine the support given to the UK film industry and would infuriate Eurosceptics.

Shadow Chancellor Francis Maude on Monday challenged Chancellor Gordon Brown to reveal his true intentions over tax harmonisation.

"Gordon Brown has signed up to the European Socialist manifesto which calls for tax harmonisation, but as soon as he gets back to London he denies everything," he said.

In the past two weeks Gordon Brown has said he would block any EU initiative to impose minimum corporation tax rates across the European Union.

A minimum corporate tax is the policy of the recently appointed German finance minister Oskar Lafontaine.

Tax competition

Later this week, an EU finance ministers group chaired by junior Treasury minister Dawn Primarolo, will publish its views on a code of conduct to stamp out "harmful" tax competition.

This will form the basis of negotiations on the abolition of "tax subsidies" and elimination of tax havens within the EU.

In spite of pressure from the Conservatives, Labour is determined not to block the proposal to impose an EU-wide witholding tax on savings and investments.