"We can only kick off the debate when all the players are on the pitch," said one member state official, referring to the political flux in both countries.

The ministers are to meet in Luxembourg on Monday and Tuesday.

German chancellor-elect Gerhard Schroeder, set to be confirmed in office by parliament on October 27 after his election victory last month, has so far failed to officially name a farm minister.

Last week's collapse of Romano Prodi's government means Italy will also be without a meaningful voice around the table. This could further delay political agreement on the agricultural aspect of the planned Agenda 2000 reforms which is already looking fragile because of wrangling over who pays what to the EU's budget, including a recently floated option to return part of farm spending tonational treasuries.

Facing a self-imposed deadline of March next year ministers do not have the luxury of mulling the reforms indefinitely and need to make "considerable progress" before the Vienna summit in December, said one official.

But progress in pushing along the radical farm blueprint, which proposes slashing the EU's internal prices for cereals, beef and dairy produce by 30 percent, has been sluggish.

Ministers will also try to agree on complex arrangements to compensate farmers for lost income because of the introduction of the euro as well as discussing details of the mechanism that will replace the present green rate system, used to calculate farmers' aid payments.

But some member states such as Germany believe it it too early to judge the euro's impact on farmers' earnings and progress on this dossier, officials say, is likely to be slow.

Other items on the agenda include wine reform, a Danish proposal to phase out the use of antibiotics in animal feed, the dire state of the Irish beefmarket and the long-simmering EU-U.S. trade row over hormone-treated beef. Ministers will be told the EU is unlikely to meet the World Trade Organisation's demand that the bloc lift its import ban on hormone-treated beef by May 13 next year because of the time-consuming task of carrying out a risk analysis.