BRUSSELS — As European officials step up pressure on Spain to swallow its pride and seek outside help to steady its wobbly banks, they also are pointing the way to a package that would have far fewer strings attached than previous bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Since last July, the European Union’s temporary bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, or E.F.S.F., has been able to lend money to a government specifically to beef up the capital reserves in the country’s banking sector. Such loans would come with a “more focused form of conditionality,” according to the fund’s updated guidelines, than the full-scale bailout that Madrid has insisted it wants to avoid.

“There was a clear need for more flexibility and for appropriate means to cater for specific cases where the source of the crisis is primarily located in the financial sector,” according to the current guidelines, which euro zone leaders updated last year when borrowing costs for Spain and Italy were surging on fears of contagion from Greece.

Rather than demanding sweeping austerity measures and changes to labor laws and pension systems — steps Spain has already for the most part undertaken as it struggles to get control of runaway deficits — the conditions attached to such a focused loan would be primarily restricted to the financial sector.

The conditions include things like ensuring that bank recapitalizations — adding financial cushions — would comply with European rules covering state aid. There would also be stipulations for strengthening national banking supervision to prevent a repeat of the failures that led to the situation. E.U. officials emphasize that the conditions would apply regardless of whether the money went directly to government coffers or through Spain’s own bank resolution fund, known as the FROB.

“Spain de facto already took actions that correspond with what one would have to do for the rescue fund,” Ewald Nowotny, a member of the European Central Bank’s governing council, said on Austrian television Wednesday night, Bloomberg News reported. “This is what the rescue fund is for, and I think this would increase the trust in Spanish banks again.”

George Osborne, the British chancellor of the Exchequer, told the BBC on Thursday that it was “clear” Spain needed money to restructure its banking system, and also pointed to the euro zone bailout funds. “What these funds are able to do is support euro zone banking systems,” he said.

The E.F.S.F. is meant to be superseded soon by a larger, permanent fund, the European Stability Mechanism. But the E.F.S.F. still has €250 billion, or $314 billion, in its war chest.

Estimates of how much money Madrid might need for its banks have ranged widely, from €40 billion to €80 billion or even €90 billion.

That helps explain why the Spanish economy minister, Luis de Guindos, has said the country will wait until it has preliminary results from two independent audits of its banks’ books, due in late June, before deciding its next step. Another indicator will come Monday, when the International Monetary Fund issues its own report on the Spanish banking sector.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy also has been holding off seeking aid while the ratification process of the new bailout fund, the E.S.M., is completed. Once it opens for business, probably July 9, the E.S.M.’s rules could potentially be tweaked to allow loans to be made directly to the banks. That could avoid some of the political stigma and — more important — break the vicious circle of weak governments’ taking on debt to rescue weak banks and vice versa.

The treaty that set up the new fund does not allow for such direct injections to banks. But some in Brussels and Paris argue that the E.S.M.’s governing board — the 17 euro zone finance ministers — would have the authority to make the change.

Such a change, however, would have to be unanimous and require parliamentary approval in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, according to a report Thursday by Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst for Europe at the Eurasia Group. “There is no guarantee this would pass, given the contingent liabilities involved,” he wrote.

Amadeu Altafaj, a spokesman for the European Commission, declined to speculate Thursday on whether such a change could be made, emphasizing only what current rules allow.

But he also was effusive in praising Spain’s restructuring efforts, drawing a distinction between it and Ireland, which had to accept an €85 billion bailout in late 2010 after its banking sector collapsed, blowing an enormous hole in the national budget.

“Spain is taking decisive action to address the challenges to its public finances,” Mr. Altafaj said. “The Spanish authorities have engaged with determination in crucial reforms, such as in the labor market. And for the banking sector, they have done what should be done first, namely to identify the fragilities, and they will take it from there in order to present a restructuring plan.”

In Ireland, by contrast, there was a banking failure and public finances “were definitely not on track,” he said.