The leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain will gather in Rome to seek agreement on ways to ease the widening debt crisis in their currency union.

Any proposals agreed at Friday's summit will be brought to a wider gathering of EU leaders on June 28 and 29.

Among the items on the agenda are a proposal by Italian Premier Mario Monti to use a bailout fund to buy sovereign debt to bring down interest rates for countries like Spain and Italy and a possible tax on financial transactions.

The meeting caps an intense week, which included the downgrade by Moody's of 15 of the world's largest banks. Spain and Italy have seen their government borrowing costs rise amid market worries about their ability to handle their debt.