Guido Westerwelle, the vice-Chancellor and head of the FDP Free Democrats, said there was no justification for last week's call by Brussels for an urgent boost in the size and powers of the €440bn (£371bn) fund.
"Only a small part of the fund has been used, so there is no need to talk about increasing it," he said, adding that any further aid must come on stringent terms.
The FDP's finance spokesman, Otto Solms, said the party's parliamentary group would oppose an expansion of the fund, and warned that it must not become a "bad bank" by purchasing EMU bonds pre-emptively.
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso is worried the fund will run dry if Portugal needs a rescue, leaving too little to defend Spain. A leaked Commission document said a fresh pulse of the crisis was "unavoidable" in early 2011.
Brussels aims to get ahead of the crisis by securing the firefighting machinery it needs in advance, hoping for the go-ahead from EU leaders on February 4. As in past episodes, however, a number of EU voices proclaimed a deal before Germany has agreed.
Chancellor Merkel said the daily rush of proposals had become tiresome and that any "further package of measures" would be conditional on EU oversight of national budgets, a demand that may rankle.
Finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said Germany might accept a formula that boosts the fund to its headline figure of €440bn, or €750bn including IMF money.
Under rules needed to anchor the fund's AAA rating, it cannot lend much above €250bn. "We have to think about making sure that the €750bn is in fact available. That's not an expansion of the rescue fund," he said.
By reworking the rules, Mr Schauble might hope to boost lending power without need for a fresh vote from the Bundestag at a delicate moment before regional elections and when austerity cuts to the German armed forces are causing a political storm.
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