Gordon Brown is stepping up efforts to secure international agreement on measures to combat the economic crisis by travelling to Paris for talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Prime Minister, who has warned the recession could last for two years without global action, will set off after his first Commons question time session since Christmas.
And on Thursday he will sit down in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel - who on Tuesday announced a £45 billion fiscal stimulus package aimed at getting her country through the crisis.
Mr Brown is preparing to host the second crisis summit of the G20 nations in London in April which he hopes will agree a fresh series of co-ordinated measures.
He discussed the situation on Tuesday with the head of the US Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, a week ahead of Barack Obama's inauguration as president.
Asked recently whether he believed experts were right to predict the downturn could last two years, the PM said: "I think that does depend on the level of international cooperation.
"You see, if we did something in Britain its effect could be magnified twice over if other countries did it alongside us."
The German package - the biggest since the Second World War - includes investment in education and transport infrastructure, tax cuts for firms and individuals, extra child benefit payments and subsidies for those buying environmentally-friendly cars.
Tensions were raised between London and Berlin late last year after German finance minister Peer Steinbruck criticised Mr Brown's own package as "crass Keynesianism".
The PM dismissed the concerns as the result of internal German politics and insisted the EU was united in its approach.
