"It seems that all parties understood that what is needed is to come up with a new set of possible nominations, new set of combinations," Pellegrini told reporters aboard his plane on the way back to Slovakia from an extraordinary EU summit.

"I think that given how we departed today and what views and opinions the parties have, it seems that we could be successful tomorrow and propose how to fill in the key European Union posts," he said.

EU leaders suspended a summit on Monday after they failed to agree who should fill the bloc's top jobs, with divisions over the marquee role of European Commission president as entrenched as ever after some 20 hours of talks.