LEIPZIG, Germany—Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union party passed a resolution calling for changes to European treaties to allow member states to voluntarily exit the euro zone without giving up membership in the broader European Union.

The vote at a party convention, while largely symbolic, could add momentum to a debate in Europe about how to deal with states like Greece that some experts believe may have a better chance dealing with their debt problems outside the euro zone.

The vote highlights the challenge Ms. Merkel faces in keeping her party’s base committed to her policies on Europe amid growing public dismay over the euro zone’s debt crisis. Hard-line critics of the euro-zone bailouts had wanted a resolution to make it possible to force a member state out of the euro-zone. Ms. Merkel rejected that, and party officials introduced compromise wording.

Earlier at the two-day convention, Ms. Merkel had delivered a passionate, hour-long speech in which she called for Germany to shoulder the burden of saving Europe’s most ambitious project and to step up to the challenges of these uncertain times. As she has in other venues recently, Ms. Merkel framed the euro-zone debt crisis as her generation’s opportunity to take the European project a huge step forward. She said Monday that Europe must have the courage to change the European treaty and allow tough, automatic sanctions for violations of the monetary union treaty.

«We need to send a clear signal,» she told the delegates. «We don’t whine; we don’t complain. We know instead that we have a job to do.» The thorny issue of voluntary withdrawal from the currency union came up recently when Greece announced a plan to hold a referendum on a euro-zone bailout plan. Ms. Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy made clear that the only way for Greece to leave the euro zone is to rescind EU membership. But some members of Ms. Merkel’s party began gathering support for a resolution to force profligate euro-zone members out of the currency club.

The compromise resolution passed by CDU delegates on Monday calls for changes to the Lisbon Treaty to allow any euro-zone member that is «unable or unwilling to permanently obey the rules connected to the common currency… to voluntarily… leave the euro zone without leaving the European Union.» It falls short of creating a trap door to get rid of perennial violators of the European Monetary Union rules on debt and budget deficits. «No one will be forced to leave the euro zone,» said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. «We have always said we want to maintain the euro-zone as a whole.»

It was at a party congress in Leipzig in 2003 where Ms. Merkel responded to Germany’s reputation as the «sick man of Europe» by pledging to return her country to its role as Europe’s undisputed economic leader within a decade. Germany is once again Europe’s locomotive. But since taking office in 2005, Ms. Merkel has abandoned many of the conservative party’s long-standing positions on core issues—from social policies to nuclear energy, mandatory conscription and now minimum wages and euro-zone bailouts. Ms. Merkel rebuffed critics who accuse her of having lost her political compass, telling delegates that the appropriate answers to Europe’s crisis couldn’t be supplied by 30-year-old policies.

«We live in times of epic change,» said Ms. Merkel. «Our political compass has not changed. But the context is constantly changing.» At the convention, held under the motto «For Europe, For Germany,» Ms. Merkel reiterated that the euro-crisis will take years of hard work to fix and that the crisis offers the opportunity to recreate the European project.Through the crisis, she said, Europe is growing closer together and Europeans are discovering that decisions taken in one country can have enormous impact on the rest of Europe, she said.

Mr. Schäuble, striking a similar tone, said it was time to «build the political union [in Europe] we never managed to build in the ’90s.» He also said that he no longer hoped the full 27-member EU could agree on treaty changes that would creating the equivalent of a European finance minister in charge of driving the integration of the bloc’s fiscal policies. Instead, the 17-member euro-zone would seek to create «common fiscal policy to accompany the common currency,» he said.

Some angry delegates disagreed with Ms. Merkel’s willingness to shoulder the burdens of other European countries. Klaus-Peter Willsch, a member of German parliament, accused Ms. Merkel’s government of breaking a vow to never bail out euro transgressors. «We promised Germans when we gave up the D-mark for the euro that we wouldn’t pay for the debts of other nations—no bailouts. This promise has been broken. We are doing exactly the opposite,» he said.

Ms. Merkel ruled out any introduction of euro bonds that would result in making the European community as a whole responsible for the debts of others. And she insisted that Europe and other regions of the world must put their finances on a sustainable footing. «Everywhere we look we find behavior that cannot go on for long,» said Ms. Merkel. «Everywhere people are living as though there is no tomorrow.»

While many delegates have reservations about the resources that Germany is committing to fight the euro-crisis, many also support Ms. Merkel’s strategy. «Merkel recognized that Europe is in a difficult situation, but at the same time clearly and competently laid out the CDU’s role in leading Germany through the European crisis,» said Erika Stahl, a long-time CDU member from Bochum in the Germany’s Ruhr Valley.

Beyond Germany’s borders, said Wilfried Martens, chairman of the conservative European People’s Party, which is represented in the European parliament, all eyes are on Berlin. «Europe is looking to Germany,» said Mr. Martens. «The world is looking to Germany. The key to solving the euro-crisis lies in Germany.»

Source: Wall Street Journal