BRUSSELS (AP) -- European Union leaders failed to get the bloc's 27 members to back a change to the EU treaty and the 17 eurozone countries are now trying to reach their own accord, an EU official said Friday.
Other non-euro countries are invited to join the new treaty, which is meant to set up much tighter rules on national fiscal policy for the 17 countries that use the euro in an attempt to solve the worsening debt crisis, the official said.
The official was speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.
Germany and France in particular had heralded the new treaty basis as an important step to emerge from the crisis, which has already dragged Greece, Portugal and Ireland into multibillion euro bailouts, but the failure to get all 27 EU countries to agree will likely be seen as a huge setback for European unity.
At the same time, the new treaty — which is likely to introduce more automatic sanctions for overspenders and force states to include debt brakes into their national constitutions — will draw the 17 country eurozone much closer together. States will be forced to give up some central parts of their sovereignty, especially when it comes to deciding how much money to spend.
The U.K., with its euro-skeptic prime minister David Cameron, was seen as one of the main obstacles to reaching agreement among the 27.
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