Angela Merkel’s return for a fourth term as German chancellor seems such a foregone conclusion, given her conservatives’ wide lead in opinion polls, that interest is mostly focused on who her coalition partner will be after the September 24 federal election.

More than ever, Europeans are looking to Berlin for a lead following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and France’s election of an untested pro-European novice president. Whether there will be decisive steps to strengthen the eurozone, complete the European banking union and build a European defense union, or more last-minute crisis management and missed opportunities hinges, more than ever, on German politics.

Merkel has presided over 12 years of cautious, steady-handed muddling through, in coalition first with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), then with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), and then again with the Social Democrats. That has enabled her to rebrand her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) as a more modern, centrist “Volkspartei” (people’s party), shedding some of its socially conservative baggage.

Undercutting the ecologist Greens, she decided after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in Japan to phase out atomic power. She opened Germany’s doors to a million refugees and other migrants in 2015, earning more plaudits from the left than from her own political family. She took the credit for implementing the Social Democrats’ policies of a minimum wage and earlier retirement for people who started work young. And she disarmed the left by taking gay marriage off the table just before the election, allowing it to pass on a free vote in parliament (even if she voted against the measure herself).

Merkel’s steady-as-she-goes message is that things are not so bad in Germany and she will keep it that way. That is carefully tailored to a risk-averse society that likes to advance by consensus. But it evades the big challenges the EU faces to prevent another financial crisis, accelerate economic growth and strengthen security against rising external and internal threats.

SPD challenger Martin Schulz has so far failed to strike much of a chord with his depiction of an unequal society crying out for more social justice rather than pouring money into U.S.-mandated rearmament. Having been the junior partner in government for the last four years and for eight of the last 12, it is hard for the SPD to distance itself from Merkel’s record, or to project a credible alternative when a left-wing government would require the support of the hard-left Die Linke party, which wants to abolish NATO and cozy up to Russia.

So back to Merkel, who — whatever her reluctance to discuss deals before going to the polls — may have four coalition options depending on where the decimal points fall on September 24.

Coalition conundrums

Merkel's party’s natural inclination would be to make a center-right coalition with the free-marketeering FDP, which looks set for a victorious return to the Bundestag after failing to jump the 5 percent hurdle for seats in 2013. She might also have the numbers to form a coalition with the Greens for the first time at the federal level. Or she might need both the FDP and the Greens to reach a majority, which would be tricky given their policy differences, and unprecedented at national level. And she has the option of another Grand Coalition with the SPD, if it were willing to be the junior partner again.

The Greens or the SPD would be the most pro-European partners. Even in opposition, they would likely assure Merkel of the votes needed to push bold eurozone reforms through the Bundestag, if she chose that route. Opinion polls show a clear majority of Germans support closer European integration, but Merkel will need to stand up to the German financial establishment, and some of her own lawmakers, to push through European deposit insurance and a fiscal backstop for bank resolution — and build a stronger economic and monetary union with French President Emmanuel Macron.

A black-yellow CDU/CSU-FDP coalition — to use the parties’ traditional colors — risks being firm on defense but reticent on eurozone integration. Both parties are committed to moving toward NATO’s guideline of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense by 2024. That would be a leap for Germany which is at just 1.2 percent this year. Both say they favor a European defense union and the FDP advocates a European army. But both would be deeply cautious about ideas floated by Macron such as a common eurozone budget and finance minister under European parliamentary scrutiny.

The FDP draws many votes from the better-off and self-employed. Its leader, Christian Lindner, called in a POLITICO interview for Greece to be pushed out of the eurozone. CDU Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble failed to achieve that in 2015 at the height of the Greek crisis, before Athens accepted and implemented a new bailout program. The idea looks anachronistic now. Lindner knows that, so his decision to play the anti-Greek card looks more like a dog-whistle to fiscal disciplinarians angry that Athens wasn’t punished more harshly for breaching EU budget rules.

The FDP advocates a multispeed Europe in which a hard core of wealthier states would move forward in federal integration, but strictly respect the no-bailout rule. Lindner opposes a eurozone unemployment insurance fund and has said there should be no “friendly gifts” for Macron.

He has made a play for the votes of Germans who don’t want Vladimir Putin’s behavior in Ukraine to get in the way of business with Russia. Moscow’s seizure and annexation of Crimea should be considered a “provisional fait accompli”, Lindner told the Hamburger Abendblatt. Berlin shouldn’t wait for the Minsk accord on a ceasefire, military withdrawal and political settlement in eastern Ukraine to be fully implemented before easing sanctions on Russia, which needs incentives for good behavior, he argued.

Merkel has distanced herself from such appeasement talk, but if the FDP were to take the foreign ministry, as it has in past black-yellow coalitions, it could make it harder for the chancellor to hold Europe to a firm line against Putin. Remember it was an FDP foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, who spearheaded German opposition to the Franco-British-led NATO air campaign in Libya in 2011, isolating Berlin from its Western allies.

A black-yellow-green coalition might squabble a lot on European policy but it would put Merkel in the center position from which she operates most comfortably. Another Grand Coalition with the SPD would give her the broadest political base from which to pursue a bold European agenda with Macron. But she could face increased sniping from fiscal conservatives in the CDU/CSU against concessions to Southern Europe on more mutualization of risk in the eurozone. The SPD might also seek to put the brakes on defense spending and arms exports.

Since this looks sure to be her last term, Merkel, 63, will be playing for her place in history, though she dismisses such considerations. If Schäuble, 75 next month, is still at her side, he too will have to choose between lifelong support for a closely integrated, federal core Europe, and grumpy determination to prevent eurozone laggards from picking German taxpayers’ pockets.

Both CDU politicians, relieved to have a stronger partner in France, indicated cautious support before the election for some of Macron’s ideas. If they choose the European high road in their last years in power and make a public case for it, any coalition is ultimately likely to follow their lead.

“Wir schaffen das (We’ll manage it),” as Merkel said of the refugee challenge.

Paul Taylor, a contributing editor at POLITICO, writes the Europe At Large column.