Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, with the euro under renewed pressure from Spanish banks and the coming Greek election, said on Thursday that the answer is ?more Europe,? with moves ?step by step? toward a fiscal and political union of countries using the euro. But how much more Europe does Europe want?

As much as greater integration may be the ultimate answer for the structural flaws in the euro zone, it is not a given. The issue was brought into sharp relief this week when Spanish officials rejected any hint of intrusion by Europe into their budgetary powers in exchange for helping the country?s banks.

Further union implies more sacrifice of national sovereignty than leaders of many countries want ? let alone their voters, who have an increasingly low opinion in general of ?Brussels? and of its largely faceless and unelected technocrats.

The concern over sovereignty extends to countries outside the euro zone, like Prime Minister David Cameron?s euro-phobic Britain. But perhaps the most important country after Germany in all this is France, a presidential republic with strong central authority. How it comes down on the question may ultimately prove decisive.

France?s new Socialist president, Fran?ois Hollande, is considered very much a ?European,? a spiritual son of his mentor, Jacques Delors, a strong European federalist who is considered the best president the European Commission has had. But Hollande has a group of powerful euro-sceptics in his party and government, and his own stance will depend to some degree, analysts say, on the results of France?s legislative elections, June 10 and June 17.

Hollande will be at his most powerful in the first two years of his five-year term, all agree. And he is pushing for more European solidarity from Berlin.

Still, Ms. Merkel and her team are worried about Hollande?s commitment to reducing the French budget deficit and to carrying out domestic structural reform, said Charles Grant, head of the Center for European Reform, who was just in Berlin. The Germans are looking for a sort of ?grand bargain? with Hollande, Grant said: ?French commitment to domestic reform and fiscal discipline in return for Berlin?s accepting the beginning of a European banking system, a ?growth pact? and a discussion of collectivised debt ? and as important, hifting the policy mix on austerity to be a little less austere,? he said.