FRANKFURT — After Greek elections eased fears that the country’s exit from the euro zone was imminent, attention turned Monday to another unruly political arena: Europe itself.


A respite from market pressure early Monday proved to be short-lived, as investors shifted their attention from political infighting in Athens to the larger question of whether European leaders could find a more lasting solution to an economic debacle now well into its third year.


As heads of E.U. member governments prepare to meet next week in Brussels, they contemplate a growing list of problems. They must keep Greece on life support, carry out a rescue of Spanish banks, and prevent the crisis from infecting Italy. At the same time, they are embarking on a contentious and potentially drawn-out struggle to re-engineer a euro currency union whose weaknesses have allowed all these problems to accumulate.


“We are still in a crisis of confidence,” said Harald Benink, a professor of banking and finance at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. “Quite a few of the fundamental issues have not been resolved.”


In Greece, the situation remains precarious even after elections paved the way for a government led by the center-right New Democracy party, seen as more realistic and pro-European than the leftist Syriza party, which finished a close second.


Signals from Brussels and other European capitals Monday were that there might be some leeway to ease the terms of aid to Greece.


“The negotiated conditions must be adhered to, but one should also give the Greek population air to breathe,” said Werner Faymann, the Austrian chancellor. He cited access to medical supplies, which have been partially disrupted, as one example of a way to ease suffering. “The consolidation must not exclusively be carried out on the back of the population.”


And yet, despite widespread agreement that the existing plan for Greece has put a nearly intolerable burden on its citizens, the only way to give the country more time to fix its economy is to lend it even more money. That would not be popular in Germany and other countries in Northern Europe, which tend to perceive Greece as not worthy of more credit because it has made scant progress in deregulating its labor markets, removing barriers to competition and getting citizens to pay taxes.


“The government has been promising these reforms for two years and hasn’t delivered,” said Lüder Gerken, head of the Center for European Policy in Freiburg, Germany. “I don’t see how anything is going to change, compared to the last two years.”


Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany appeared to douse any expectations Monday that Greece’s lenders would cut it some slack. Speaking in Los Cabos, Mexico, before a meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 leading industrialized and developing nations, Ms. Merkel ruled out a new aid package for Greece.


“The Greek government will and must naturally follow through on the commitments that were made,” Ms. Merkel told reporters. “There can be no loosening of the reform steps.”


President Barack Obama, also in Los Cabos for the meeting, said the outcome of Greece’s elections would provide a new opportunity for the crisis-torn country.


And in what seemed a veiled appeal to Germany to ease up on its demands, he said, “I think the election in Greece yesterday indicates a positive prospect for not only them forming a government, but also them working constructively with their international partners in order that they can continue on the path of reform and to do so in a way that also offers the prospects for the Greek people to succeed and prosper.”


Ms. Merkel’s hard-line stance was a reminder of how far European leaders are from a consensus on ways to restore confidence in the euro zone. But now that the Greek elections are over, it may at least be easier for leaders there and in the rest of the euro zone to negotiate in earnest about holding the currency union together.