GERMAN CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel has spent her six years in power on a public opinion see-saw. If she was feted in the European press, you could be sure she was being vilified at home. Glowing reviews in Germany, meanwhile, usually meant its neighbours were complaining about her.
Now the reviews at home and abroad are equally grim - simultaneously. The complaints vary - from a perceived lack of leadership to Berlin's belated, grudging bailout assistance - but have a common root: the failure of Germany's political class to discuss their country's evolving role in a changing EU where it no longer automatically subsumes its interests for the greater good.
In the economic crisis, the consequences of that failure have become clear. More than 50 per cent of Germans have little to no faith in the EU, according to a January poll by the Allensbach institute, while more than 70 per cent do not see Europe as the future of Germany. That has rattled the political class, in particular the backbenchers of Dr Merkel's ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) who in the last year have had to back a series of previously unthinkable decisions: the abolition of military service; financial assistance to Greece, Ireland and Portugal; the reversal of Germany's nuclear energy strategy - twice. As soon as a second Greek aid package appeared inevitable, Berlin demanded it include compulsory private creditor involvement.
What was pitched as an effort to spare beleaguered taxpayers was more an attempt to appease obstreperous government backbenchers. The move annoyed European partners and unsettled markets; then Dr Merkel agreed last Friday that only voluntary participation was possible, calming her European partners but frustrating her own MPs.
"You just do your thing without taking us along," complained one CDU constituency official to the German leader at a weekend meeting. "How am I supposed to go out there and defend our work . . . when I don't even understand it myself?" Dr Merkel knows every fresh twist in the bailout narrative increases the chances of a Bundestag revolt against any future bailout votes. There's a whiff of mutiny, too, in Germany's foreign ministry. Diplomats feel sidelined in the euro zone crisis: the dwindling influence of foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has compounded its loss of EU competences to the chancellery in recent years, particularly under the Lisbon Treaty.
Off the record, senior figures say many complaints of EU partners towards Berlin are justified.
Germany's relationship with the EU was already changing before the bailout era, officials say, but the economic crisis has made it all the more urgent to find a new rhetoric and narrative to communicate the importance of this new relationship to German voters and EU partners.
"We stuck to the old Kohl rhetoric for too long and then shifted too quickly to the current economic, monetary rhetoric with nothing in between," said one senior foreign ministry figure.
"In a situation like this, when the populists are playing on people's emotions, we could really do with someone at the top who is able to bring some passion to the debate."
The euro zone crisis has seen the emergence in Germany of a new eurosceptic establishment. Economists and academics, columnists and captains of industry are driving on the debate with an energetic media campaign and accusatory arguments that tap into deep-seated resentment. Tackling such a campaign would be a challenge for any government head.
But for Dr Merkel, her lack of rhetorical ability is underpinned by what critics call an utter lack of rhetorical flourish or fire.
Dr Michael Stürmer, chief correspondent of Die Welt, was part of the team that fashioned the European sound of Helmut Kohl's EU speeches. "The power of the political speech comes from conviction - and Merkel has no convictions," said Dr Stürmer.