French President Nicolas Sarkozy is due to meet Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti in Paris today, in the first of a series of meetings over the coming weeks.
The talks come as European governments get their ducks in a row ahead of the first EU Leaders' Summit of 2012 in Brussels at the end of the month.
It will not be the first meeting between the two leaders.
Mr Monti met Mr Sarkozy and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Strasbourg last November, shortly after he was elected as Italy's technocratic Prime Minister following the departure of Silvio Berlusconi.
Italy remains one of the biggest concerns within the eurozone. It needs to renew 440bn euro of government borrowing this year and will do so with the interest rates it needs to pay on that debt (bond yields) floating around 7% - an unsustainable figure.
Prime Minister Monti will then meet Mrs Merkel in Berlin next week, two days after she has held a mini-summit with Mr Sarkozy.
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Continuing his tour of Europe, Mr Monti travels to London for talks with Prime Minister David Cameron on January 18. These talks form a key part of pre-summit negotiations.
Two key points are likely to be at the top of the agenda at the EU Leaders' Summit.
The gathering will pick up from where it left off in December when 26 of the 27 EU nations agreed to treaty changes. Only Britain vetoed the proposals.
Financial markets will want the leaders to develop and progress the plans, particularly with regard to the makeup of the legal framework and proposed implementation.
President Sarkozy, who faces an election this spring, has dropped strong hints that he wants to introduce a financial transactions tax sooner rather than later.
The UK is strongly opposed to it on the basis that it would unfairly affect the City of London, but some EU states might decide to go ahead with it - without British support.
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