THE NEWS: A plan for European Union countries to tax financial transactions and use the proceeds to fund future bank bailouts stalled Friday, with just nine out of 27 countries ready to support it, raising the prospect the tax will be implemented only by a subset of EU countries.

THE DETAILS: The proposed financial transactions tax would charge banks 0.1 percent of the value of sales of stocks or bonds and 0.01 percent per derivative contract.

LOOKING AHEAD: Finance ministers from the nine countries that endorsed the idea said they still wanted to forge ahead and hoped that some undecided countries would join them later.