ACCORDING to Britain's tabloid press, a swaggering Germany is using the euro crisis to impose what one title dubbed a “Fourth Reich”. The Conservative-led coalition government is more diplomatic. Logic is driving the single-currency club towards closer integration, ministers murmur.

Yet tabloids and Tory ministers agree that a grand opportunity looms. Mighty Germany, they explain, thinks that the European Union must change its treaties to save the euro. What Germany wants, Germany gets, with one proviso: a new treaty must be ratified by all 27 members of the club. The mood at Westminster is febrile, as Conservative MPs debate the concessions that Britain should demand in exchange for allowing single-currency members to huddle closer. Conservative ministers and MPs differ over timing (new treaties are not conjured up overnight, ministers have warned backbenchers). But they share a broad strategy: Britain should demand powers back from Brussels and “refashion” its relationship with the union, seek to freeze the next EU budget, stand aloof from euro-zone bail-outs, shield the City of London from meddling Euro-regulations and push for deeper single-market liberalisation. Patience, the prime minister, David Cameron, recently urged MPs demanding a referendum on EU membership. The time for reform is coming and when it does, he vowed: “Every country can wield a veto until its needs are met.”

The heady mood hides a flaw in this scheme to take the euro crisis hostage. Rather few Westminster politicians seem curious as to whether other EU countries have views about their plan. As it happens, they do.

A golden sun shone in a cloudless sky when Bagehot visited the German capital this week. Even the glass and concrete blocks of the central political district seemed to glow with prosperity. But the mood in Berlin is not sunny, or swaggering. Seen from Germany, troubles seem to crowd in from across Europe.

Greece is discussed with near-despair. Italy provokes something not far from contempt. Italians must decide between “a European future, or an African one,” a politician says, before exchanging looks with an assistant and asking for the remark to be struck from the record. Britain is praised as a valued and important EU member. But as players in the euro-zone crisis, the British are viewed with head-shaking exasperation.

Germany knows many countries worry about a new treaty. But it thinks rules intended to prevent euro-zone profligacy have failed. New legal structures are needed for the 17 countries that share the single currency. Germany would strongly prefer to embed them in a formal EU treaty agreed on by all 27 members. Others, notably France (which feels its Gallic influence diluted in the enlarged EU) would prefer integration around an inner core of 17.

Germany's preference for a larger group is partly about protecting established EU institutions. In part, it is responding to alarm from countries, such as Poland, which are pledged to join the euro one day and unwilling to languish in an outer circle. Finally, Germany reckons saving the euro will require laggards to embrace greater budgetary discipline and openness. Many of Europe's strongest advocates for free markets, free trade, fiscal rigour and reform, such as Britain, Denmark, Sweden and Poland, are euro “outs”. Germany wants their voices in the room.

At a Brussels summit last month, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, told Mr Cameron that euro-zone leaders were “sick of you criticising us and telling us what to do”. For good measure, the Frenchman reminded the euro “outs” that—apart from Britain and Denmark—they were all committed to join the single currency, so it was not in their interest to side with Mr Cameron. Several failed to contradict him. Some in Britain talk of leading a block of ten “outs”. No such block exists.

Not just the French who are sick of Britain

When it comes to EU diplomacy Germany does not do histrionics. But there is frustration in Berlin at what are seen as British double-standards. Mr Cameron tells euro-zone members to do more to save their currency. Yet Britain does not offer to help and demands to be consulted on big decisions, for example on bank recapitalisation. In Brussels Mr Cameron tells the EU to beware of breaking up the single market, and stoutly defends free-trade rules that apply to all. Yet back in London, ministers talk of special opt-outs giving British business low-cost, deregulated membership of the common market.

In Berlin the belief is that rewriting single-market rules would lead to many countries demanding more protections—the opposite of what Britain wants. Belgium, for instance, might push for more workers' rights. Facing a tough re-election fight, Mr Sarkozy last week declared that Europe should not be a “dupe” when it came to global trade, and proposed EU import taxes to help pay for European welfare systems.

Germany's priority is rules establishing unprecedented oversight of euro-zone economies. If Britain asks too high a price for its consent, Germany will reluctantly agree to a new treaty outside the EU system. This, it is expected, would involve more than 17 countries but fewer than 27. Britain would lose its veto.

What about democracy, MPs in Westminster might (justifiably) retort? British voters are overwhelmingly unhappy with the EU status quo. And if Britain's government is accused of bowing to populist forces, well, German voter outrage explains why the chancellor, Angela Merkel, has spent more than a year resisting a credible solution to the euro crisis.

All true. But diplomacy is a test of relative power, not virtue. Mr Cameron has promised MPs that the euro crisis offers a golden opportunity to advance Britain's national interest. Other EU countries disagree. Something, at some point, will have to give.

Economist.com/blogs/bagehot