Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble | Photo by EPA Europe’s bad cops Why are Merkel and Schäuble so harsh with Athens? Look at German domestic politics.

BERLIN — Germany’s hardline stance in weekend negotiations over a new Greek bailout surprised even veterans of European politics.

With Athens on the ropes, having capitulated to most of its creditors’ demands, many expected Angela Merkel to slip into the role of the devoted European, invoking the importance of solidarity.

Instead, the chancellor arrived at Sunday’s summit with guns blazing.

“The most important currency has been lost and that is trust and reliability,” she said just seconds after emerging from her black Audi. “We’re going to have difficult discussions and there won’t be a deal at any price.”

Merkel took no questions. But her intention wasn’t to give answers. It was to offer reassurance to the millions of Germans watching the Sunday news.

The choreography was perfect. A few hours later, Merkel’s arrival statement opened Germany’s main evening news program on state broadcaster ARD.

For years, Germans have chafed at the billions in bailout money Greece has received. Altogether, Germany is on the hook for about €90 billion. If the current bailout goes through the total will likely rise by about €20 billion. Those commitments may be in the form of guarantees, but most Germans see it as money flushed down the drain.

Support for a Greek bailout has never been lower. Nearly half of Germans want Greece to leave the euro, the highest percentage in a poll of several European countries by YouGov published on Friday.

Those attitudes explain why Merkel is playing hardball.

Many in Europe hoped this weekend’s summit would defuse the Greek crisis with an agreement to open new talks on a bailout. Instead, at Merkel’s insistence, Athens was given 48 hours to rush a clutch of reforms through parliament, a non-negotiable pre-condition to the resumption of bailout talks. The bottom line: If Germany is going to agree to another bailout, Greece will be put on a short leash.

Schäuble’s no love message

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has been even more vociferous, arguing over the weekend that Greece should consider taking a hiatus from the eurozone. His tough stance on Greece has won him broad praise in Germany, where his job approval rating recently surpassed Merkel’s.

That means Merkel will need Schäuble’s backing to sell another bailout. Without it she would risk losing not just the support of the German public, but her own parliamentary group.

Schäuble has played a central role in rallying support for past bailouts among Christian Democrats and will need to do so again. That might explain why she hasn’t veered too far from his lead, using a more measured tone but not deviating in substance.

The Bundestag will have to both grant Merkel’s government a mandate to begin new rescue talks with Greece and approve an eventual agreement. On both fronts, Merkel will face an intense battle with her Christian Democrats.

There’s little question she’ll manage to get the measures through, given both the Social Democrats, her grand coalition partner, and the opposition support the rescue.

Yet the debate within her own party, which has accounted for nearly all of the opposition in past votes on Greece, will be intense. Bailout opponents among the Christian Democrats feel vindicated by the failure of past rescues and their ranks are swelling. To maintain credibility among her base, Merkel will need to overcome the dissent.

The question is how much farther can she push them. Past bailouts led to the formation of the anti-euro Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. While it won election to the European Parliament and a number of state legislatures, the party is now in disarray after lurching to the right with a more nationalist message that split its leadership.

The AfD’s turmoil may make it less of an immediate threat, but the deep opposition in Germany to the bailouts won’t dissipate that easily.

Europe on the line

One strategy for selling another rescue may be to play up the European dimension. Germany’s seeming intransigence on Greece in recent weeks has strained relations with both France and Italy, both of which have argued for a softer approach. They were particularly taken aback by Schäuble’s proposal to essentially put Greece in quarantine outside the eurozone, a step they worry could trigger the currency zone’s unraveling. Paris and Rome worry that the combative debates on Greece are doing long-term damage to European unity.

They aren’t alone. Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, an influential conservative daily, warned in a commentary published on Monday that the crisis has started to threaten the Franco-German relationship. The paper has been vocal in its opposition to more aid for Greece but now it sees a broader danger.

“Germany’s political strategy in the EU has become more German as the Greek crisis has escalated, France’s, more French,” the paper said on its front page. “That is a much more important reason for alarm than Greece’s condition. If Europe’s two leading powers are not pursuing common aims, their future is dark.”

Germany’s relationship with France is the foundation of its European engagement and the cornerstone of the EU. Berlin will go to great lengths to ensure it’s not threatened. If Merkel needs to, she can argue that saving Greece is the price Germany needs to pay to preserve Franco-German unity, an argument that would likely resonate with many in her party and beyond.

Speaking late Sunday after attending the Brussels summit, a somber Martin Schulz, president of the European parliament, said that in his many years in Brussels he had never experienced a worse atmosphere.

“This isn’t about a compromise in one direction or the other,” he said in an interview with German television. “Let’s be honest, tonight is about whether Europe stays together or not.”