By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

LONDON, England - August 28, 2011 - German Chancellor Angela Merkel no longer has enough coalition votes in the Bundestag to secure backing for Europe's revamped rescue machinery, threatening a constitutional crisis in Germany and a fresh eruption of the euro debt saga.

Mrs. Merkel has cancelled a high-profile trip to Russia on September 7, the crucial day when the package goes to the Bundestag and the country's constitutional court rules on the legality of the EU's bailout machinery.

If the court rules that the 440 billion euro rescue fund (EFSF) breaches Treaty law or undermines German fiscal sovereignty, it risks setting off an instant brushfire across the monetary union.

The seething discontent in Germany over Europe's debt crisis has spread to all the key institutions of the state. "Hysteria is sweeping Germany," said Klaus Regling, the EFSF's director.

German media reported that the latest tally of votes in the Bundestag shows that 23 members from Mrs. Merkel's own coalition plan to vote against the package, including twelve of the 44 members of Bavaria's Social Christians (CSU). This may force the Chancellor to rely on opposition votes, risking a government collapse.

Christian Wulff, Germany's president, stunned the country last week by accusing the European Central Bank of going "far beyond its mandate" with mass purchases of Spanish and Italian debt, and warning that the Europe's headlong rush towards fiscal union stikes at the very core of democracy. "Decisions have to be made in Parliament in a liberal democracy. That is where legitimacy lies," he said.

A day earlier, the Bundesbank fired its own volley, condemning the European Central Bank’s (ECB) bond purchases and warning the EU is drifting towards debt union without "democratic legitimacy" or treaty backing.

Joahannes Singhammer, leader of the CSU's Bundestag group, accused the ECB of acting dangerously by jumping the gun before parliaments had voted. The ECB is implicitly acting on behalf of the rescue fund until it is ratified.

A CSU document to be released on Monday flatly rebuts the latest accord between Chancellor Merkel and French president Nicholas Sarkozy, saying plans for an "economic government for eurozone states" are unacceptable. It demands treaty changes to let European Monetray Union states go bankrupt, and to eject them from the euro altogether for serial abuses.