HERMAN Van Rompuy, President of the European Council of EU leaders, will have private talks with David Cameron on Monday to try to avoid a political car crash in Brussels next week over who should get Europe's top job.
Mr Van Rompuy will decide on when the vote will take place to decide who will succeed Jose Manuel Barroso as President of the European Commission, the Brussels administration.
It looks set to be next Friday in the Belgian capital.
The council chairman will be particularly keen to ensure Mr Barroso's successor is agreed upon by all 28 leaders.
While the winning candidate can be chosen by a majority, one never has if one of bloc's leading members has objected.
This week, the prime minister said he would "fight to the very end" to block veteran federalist Jean-Claude Juncker from getting the role. A No 10 spokesman said Mr Cameron would "underline UK opposition, shared across all three main political parties, to the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker and our concerns about the Spitzenkandidaten process".
As part of his attempt to win over some of his EU counterparts, Mr Cameron yesterday spoke to Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister about the vote.
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