PARIS: Center-left European Union leaders gathered in Paris on Saturday to find common ground in the battle over the EU’s top job ahead of a crunch summit this week.

President Francois Hollande held a first meeting with Italy’s popular young new premier Matteo Renzi before the two headed into talks with seven other leaders.

The discussions are to focus on who the Social Democratic leaders will back for the EU’s most high-profile position, the president of the powerful European Commission in Brussels.

Moves to hand the post to Jean-Claude Juncker — a long-serving Luxembourg premier and EU insider — have triggered the most bitter dispute seen in Europe since the height of the euro crisis.

The row is set to dominate a two-day summit in Brussels of all 28 EU leaders starting Thursday, with Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron vowing to fight Juncker’s appointment “until the end.”

A similar mini-summit of center-right EU leaders in Sweden this month saw some strong opposition to Juncker’s appointment although German Chancellor Angela Merkel is backing him.

Renzi has conditioned his support for the Luxembourger on a change in the German-inspired austerity policies that Brussels has pushed in recent years.

With France’s Hollande politically weak, the 39-year-old Renzi is increasingly taking the front seat on the European left, opposing Merkel over austerity.

The center-left leaders in Paris are also expected to demand reforms in Brussels — a month after Europe’s half a billion people delivered a stinging wake-up call in a vote that saw a surge by anti-EU parties.

As well as Hollande and Renzi, the Paris “mini-summit” brings together Austria’s Werner Faymann, Belgian Elio di Rupo, Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark, Romania’s Victor Ponta, Slovak Robert Fico, the Czech Republic’s Bohuslav Sobotka and Malta’s Joseph Muscat.

“The idea is to allow the EU’s Social Democrats to exchange their views and priorities for Europe,” a French official who asked not to be named said ahead of the talks.

“The aim as usual is to strengthen moves favoring employment, growth and investment.”

Renzi has urged the next Commission chief to back his plans to ease the EU’s tough budget and deficit rules to allow governments to stimulate growth and employment with spending.

Merkel this week appeared to dismiss any move to change the EU’s budget rulebook, saying the current system “already contains all the flexibility we need.”

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who heads the Social Democrats and is also attending the Paris talks, has suggested he may back easing EU budget rules for France and Italy.

In an interview with Der Spiegel newsweekly published on Saturday, he again suggested some EU countries should be given more time to get their finances in order.

“Real reforms in exchange for more time to reduce the deficit — I think that’s an intelligent position,” he told the magazine.