Obama presidency could dismay anti-Bush Europe

To many in Europe, President Bush is still a pariah, and Barack Obama is a phenom.

But as Mr. Bush heads to the continent Monday for a weeklong goodbye tour, the little known fact is that his administration has done much to repair the trans-Atlantic relationship in his second term. As for Mr. Obama, recent events indicate the Democrat from Illinois, if elected president, might not be the drastic contrast with Mr. Bush that many in Europe are wishing for.

“Once President Bush is out of the White House, there will be huge expectations in Europe that a new, rosy dawn of peace and love is appearing over the Atlantic,” said Reginald Dale, a Europe scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“They’re liable to be somewhat disappointed, because America is still going to look after its own interests, and then the fundamental interests may not have changed that much,” he said.

Mr. Bush’s trip to Slovenia on Tuesday for the European Union summit will serve as a prelude to his jaunt through Berlin, Rome, Paris and London.

But Mr. Bush’s presence at the EU summit will result in a push and pull on Iran and climate change. European leaders will press Mr. Bush to agree to a global emissions-reduction target, and he will urge more action to stop Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon.

“I will continue to work on this trip to talk about the dangers of a nuclear Iran,” Mr. Bush said Friday.

Despite the high-stakes negotiations on climate change and Iran, many European leaders will be looking past Mr. Bush to his successor.

David Pumphrey, a former senior official at the Department of Energy in the Bush administration, said that Europe sees an “opportunity to engage successfully” on climate change under the next administration.

Both Mr. Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, have said they will endorse a “cap-and-trade” system here in the United States, which the Bush administration has resisted.

But on the question that matters most to Europe - a global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol - the next U.S. president may not depart from Mr. Bush’s position, which has been that China and India must be part of any deal.

Mr. McCain has clearly stated that China and India must bring their emerging economies into any global agreement.

Mr. Obama has been more vague. An Obama spokesman said that the senator would “push aggressively” for China and India to participate, while also setting up a global energy forum made up of the world’s largest developed and developing emitters.

The White House has altered its rhetoric in the last year, signaling willingness to join a global regime if China and India do, rather than simply opposing any participation. But the Bush administration is confident that its position on China and India will be preserved, calling any view to the contrary a “political miscalculation.”

“There has occasionally been voiced the misimpression that a future administration will take a significantly different attitude towards climate than this administration,” said Dan Price, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs.

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