“When she walks into the room, everybody falls silent. It’s like the headmistress coming in.” That, according to one senior politician, is the impact that Angela Merkel has when she enters the regular gatherings of conservative leaders from across Europe.

The chill spread by the German chancellor is easy to understand. Her colleagues know that the fate of the euro – and the European Union as a whole – now depends on decisions made by the German government. Many criticise Ms Merkel for lacking imagination, warmth and generosity – for being too slow and too cautious. The chancellor is even under attack from pro-Europeans back home. Helmut Kohl, her mentor and the man who took Germany into the euro, complained recently that he had no sense of “where Germany stands today, and where it is heading”.

The general tenor of all this criticism is clear. Why won’t Ms Merkel live up to her promise to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro? Why won’t she finally get ahead of the crisis, by committing all of Germany’s financial might to the project? Why can she not see that eurobonds – a pooling of credit risk across the EU – are the answer? Europe needs a leader and instead it has got a hausfrau.