German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a stronger political union in Europe to overcome the euro zone's debt crisis, which she called "maybe Europe's most difficult hours since World War II".
A breakthrough will be achieved not by "less Europe, but more", she told members of her party gathered for their annual convention in Leipzig.
She said EU treaties must be overhauled to create a tighter political union, including measures to force countries in violation of fiscal discipline rules to face tough and automatic sanctions, even possibly hauling them to the European Court of Justice.
The leader of Europe's biggest economy said the crisis led people across the continent to realise that the problems of any state within the 17-nation euro zone today are also the problems of all other members.
Merkel's comments came amid rising criticism of the EU within her Christian Democratic Union in the wake of costly bail-outs of Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
Later, Germany's finance minister told Reuters that the country would like to see Europe push through changes to the Lisbon Treaty by the end of 2012.
Speaking in Leipzig, Wolfgang Schauble said the changes would be aimed at allowing the euro zone to set up the structure for a common budgetary policy.
He said he would prefer all 27 members of the EU to sign up to the treaty change, but conceded that some non-euro members had already signalled their resistance to such changes. Britain has already indicated it opposes changes to the treaty.
"In that case, we would ask them not to stop the 17 of us (euro zone states) from proceeding," Schaeuble said.
