German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet ratified expanded measures to combat the euro-area debt crisis as she quells a rebellion among coalition lawmakers that threatened to derail the package.

Senior members of Merkel's Christian Democrats including finance and economy spokesman, Michael Meister, and floor leader Volker Kauder said this week they are now confident of securing a coalition majority for the proposed changes to the European rescue fund. Merkel yesterday pledged to consult lawmakers as much as they felt necessary to dispel lingering doubts.

"We're in a now-familiar phase of ifs and buts from lawmakers, but the bill will pass," Peter Grottian, a politics professor at Berlin's Free University, said by phone yesterday. "What's more painful: risking the collapse of the government and a devastating economic backlash, or gritting your teeth and waving through a bill that may be effective even if you don't understand it?"