Gordon Brown: G20 summit is the ‘last chance’ to save the eurozone

Gordon Brown, Britain's former prime minister, warned Friday that Italy and France could soon require bailouts, and that the G20 Summit was the world's "last chance" to stop a global slowdown as a result of the eurozone crisis. 

"The standard, but often empty, language of summit communiqués will simply not do when the euro area is finally approaching its own day of reckoning," Brown wrote in a column published by Reuters. 

The G20 summit, which kicks off Monday in Mexico, will bring together 19 countries in addition to the European Union members, which account for 80 percent of both global gross domestic product and global trade, BBC News reported. 

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The summit's host, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, has said he wants the G20 to come up with ways to promote green growth and invest in scientific and agricultural technology, according to BBC. 

Brown, however, warned that the focus of the meeting needs to be on the Eurozone, saying that Greece is quickly headed towards a messy exit from the European Union and that bigger economies are not far behind.

"Even German banks," considered to be some of the region's most stable financial institutions, are not "immune from needing more capital," wrote the former British politician. 

"The European crisis is no longer a European crisis," wrote Brown. "It is now everyone’s. Unless Monday’s G20 summit in Mexico coordinates a concerted global action plan right now, we face a global slowdown that will also have a deep impact on the US presidential election and even on China’s transition to a new leadership." 

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British Prime Minister David Cameron has planned a conference call ahead of the G20 with Eurozone members, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Francois Hollande, Italian PM Mario Monti, Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council president Herman van Rompuy, the Telegraph reported. 

Barroso said Friday that both the Euro and the Union are "irreversible," according to the Telegraph, and that Europe's leaders should "stay the course" throughout this difficult time.