As evidence grows that the German economy, the largest in Europe, is beginning to stall, Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed a growing willingness on Thursday to use government spending to stimulate growth, a possible shift in position that could ripple across the entire eurozone.

Ms. Merkel’s new tack, signaled in a Berlin news conference, may be partly a response to increasingly clamorous criticism from the International Monetary Fund, independent economists and fellow Europeans that her longstanding emphasis on balancing the federal budget needs to give way to pumping more money into the lethargic German economy.

If Germany in fact gives itself a bit more spending latitude, it would no doubt fuel the demands from its eurozone neighbors, most notably France, to have more budgetary flexibility to stimulate their own economies.

Mainly, though, its neighbors are counting on Germany to lead by example.

As the biggest economy in the 18-member eurozone and the one that in recent years was growing enough to at least partly offset economic softness elsewhere in the region, Germany drives demand in the bloc. Other countries in the region have watched with growing alarm as indicators have suggested that the standard-bearer might be stumbling. International economists have repeatedly called for Germany to stop worrying about balancing its budget and instead invest in economic stimulus.