Politically speaking, the tartare de langoustines and turbot with asparagus served at Egmont Palace on Friday night may well have been Manfred Weber's last meal. And he didn't even get to eat it.

Six EU prime ministers gathered in Brussels for dinner to discuss how to fill all of the EU's top leadership jobs, and the fate of Weber — the German MEP who is the European People's Party (EPP) nominee for Commission president — was clearly at stake, along with the entire Spitzenkandidat or "lead candidate" system.

The prime ministers, two each from the EU's conservative, Socialist and Liberal political families, issued only a bare-bones statement after their meal.

"The objective of the informal meeting was to have an exchange of views between the main political families represented at the European Council on the future priorities of the European Union," they said in a joint statement. "The meeting was constructive, there was convergence on elements of the strategic agenda. Challenges were identified."

Indeed, identifying the challenges was not particularly difficult.

Friday's dinner ended with a cheese plate but no formal clue as to the state of the leaders' thinking

Weber and the EPP are insisting that they have first claim to the Commission presidency, the EU's top job, after their party finished first in the European Parliament election with a projected 179 out of 751 seats. But the Socialists, who won 152 seats, and the Liberals, who won 110, say the EPP is now a minority within a pro-EU majority coalition, and must acknowledge that the coalition will lean center-left.

More importantly, the EPP is currently outnumbered in the European Council, where it holds just eight seats among the EU's heads of state and government. Together, the Liberals and Socialists hold 15 seats. According to the EU treaties, the Council must nominate a candidate for Commission president who must then be elected by a majority of the Parliament.

The prime ministers at dinner on Friday — liberals Charles Michel of Belgium and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands; conservatives Krišjānis Kariņš of Latvia and Andrej Plenković of Croatia; and socialists António Costa of Portugal and Pedro Sánchez of Spain — stressed that they were not usurping the legal role of the Council, or its president, Donald Tusk.

"This informal process does not replace formal discussions in the European Council and the European Parliament and the mandate given to the President of the Council," they said in their joint statement.

But the appointment of the six coordinators, a new approach, was a clear sign that EU leaders expect the deliberations to be among the most difficult they have ever faced, with high chances of a stalemate either in the Council or in the Parliament.

Friday's dinner ended with a cheese plate but no formal clue as to the state of the leaders' thinking. But according to aides, ministers and other officials involved in the process, it is just a matter of time before Weber's candidacy is formally rejected.

Tusk, who bears legal responsibility for directing the negotiating process, has urged each of the big political families to present a "Plan B" — an alternative to the lead candidates that were put forward during the election, officials said.

Publicly, the EPP has refused to acknowledge any willingness to consider an alternative to Weber with party officials saying they are interested in just one job, the Commission presidency, and have just one candidate to fill it. The conservatives have pointed to Weber's overwhelming reelection as leader of the group in Parliament earlier this week as evidence of his strong support, and a warning that opposing him could lead to deadlock in Parliament.

The Socialists, whose lead candidate is Frans Timmermans, the Commission first vice president and a former Dutch foreign minister, have been less adamant, but also have not yet publicly suggested any alternative names.

Tusk visited Sánchez in Madrid on Thursday, partly to better understand the Spaniard's overarching goals. Sanchez has made clear he wants to expand Spanish influence in the EU's upper echelons, which would likely include a senior position for Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, who was the top candidate for the Spanish Socialists in the Parliament election. Borrell is also a former president of the European Parliament, with deep experience in Brussels.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe refused to put forward a single nominee, as a protest against the Spitzenkandidat process, which they said favorsa the EPP, and instead put forward a slate of seven names that includes the EU's Danish competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, and the party's group leader in Parliament, former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

Despite having that slate of names, French President Emmanuel Macron, whose En Marche party now controls the largest number of seats in the Liberal group, has been coy about his overall preferences for the future EU leadership.

Some officials have said Macron favors Vestager for the Commission presidency, while others suggest he could forgo the EU's top job in exchange for installing a French candidate as president of the European Central Bank.

Overall, members of the European Council are said to be seeking general agreement on a leadership "package" that would match posts to parties before settling on specific names. But there is little doubt that names are a crucial factor in their thinking.

The jobs up for grabs are the presidencies of the Commission, Council and Parliament, as well as the high representative for foreign affairs. The central bank presidency is also part of the discussions, though that appointment is less political given the bank's independence and the need for specialized expertise.

Absent from Friday's dinner was any representative of the Greens, which have surged in support and are expected to control 73 seats in the Parliament but do not have any national leader sitting in the European Council. The Greens, nonetheless, could prove crucial to the coalition negotiations in Parliament. The EPP has suggested it could freeze out the Liberals by forming a majority with the Socialists and Greens.

A fuller discussion of the leadership posts is expected at a regular European Council summit later this month. But in their statement, the coordinators also pledged "to stay in close contact with each other."