After the bonhomie that accompanied the opening ceremony and the unanimous approval of China's entry to the WTO, delegates in Doha yesterday got down to the real business of disagreeing with each other. There are a number of areas of conflict, from the environment to anti-dumping rules. But the issue expected to be most difficult to resolve is agriculture.

"It's just like Seattle all over again, except that the sun is shining," one European delegate said. Under WTO rules, some countries can subsidise exports but only for products on which they have commitments to reduce the subsidies. And some forms of direct payments to farmers are exempt from a general rule that subsidies linked to production must be reduced or kept to a defined minimum.

Developing countries complain that export subsidies, such as the export refunds EU farmers receive when they sell produce outside the EU, distort free trade and disadvantage farmers in poorer countries. They say that export subsidies not only make it more difficult for developing countries to break into rich countries' markets, but flood poorer countries with artificially cheap food.

A draft declaration under discussion in Doha commits member-states to reduce subsidies "with a view to phasing out". This does not go far enough for the US and the Cairns Group of food exporters, which includes Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Brazil. They want a commitment to eliminate the subsidies.

The EU says it is willing to discuss subsidies in a new round of trade reductions, but rejects talk of phasing out or elimination. The Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, said yesterday that it was a mistake to determine the outcome of a new trade round before it began.

"We are not here to adopt a round. We are here to launch a round," he said.

Yet while Mr Gerd Sonnleitner, leader of the European Farmers' Union, said the European Council, the Commission and farmers' groups were united on the issue, cracks began to emerge within the EU yesterday. Swedish and Dutch delegates were whispering that some member-states were so determined that the meeting in Doha should succeed that they were willing to compromise on agriculture. But Ireland and France stubbornly refused to change the Commission's negotiating mandate.

Like Ireland, France faces an election next year and neither President Jacques Chirac nor his Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, want to displease the country's powerful agricultural sector. The same is undoubtedly true for the Government.

As Mr Sonnleitner suggested yesterday, a promise to end subsidies may come some time in the future - but it will not happen in Doha.