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PARIS - With Europe counting the days to when it can turn the page on the Bush presidency, Barack Obama has some effective early options for repairing a relationship that has been badly torn over the last eight years.
Obama's foreign policy team could be unveiled as early as this week with Hillary Clinton named as the next secretary of state, according to United States media reports.
But even before he is sworn in on January 21, there are things Obama can do to reassert the "soft power" - diplomatic clout and political goodwill - lost under George W. Bush, say observers.
"The biggest impact Obama can have will be on global warming," said Robin Shepherd, an analyst at the Chatham House thinktank in London. "Obama has made it clear that he will push on that, and he will be very welcome in Europe with that attitude."
Bush incurred Europe's enduring dismay by pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol for curbing greenhouse gases in March 2001.
Obama has vowed to bulldoze away Bush's policy by slashing US carbon emissions to their 1990 level by 2020.
Members of a US Congressional delegation who are close to Obama will be attending the December 1-12 United Nations talks in Poland for crafting a new global pact on climate change beyond 2012.
Exhausted by the years of denial and obstructionism by Bush, European negotiators will press these envoys for signals that Obama will forge forward with his strategy, despite unfavourable economic winds.
Markus Kaim of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin says another "pretty obvious" decision for Obama will be to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
"That would make a major difference to public opinion in Europe. Okay, there are technical questions about what you do with the hard-core guys, how you put them on trial. But everybody in Europe would be delighted to see the symbol of the decline of the American judicial system closed."
Kaim said Obama should follow up this shift of tone in April when he attends the Nato summit on the Rhine, marking his first major appearance in front of a pan-European audience. In contrast to Bush's deafness to others, "It will be crucial that Obama adheres to his announcement of 'I will listen'," he said.
Bush's tenure is frequently characterised in the European media as having been catastrophic for transatlantic relations.
But Shepherd said the damage was most prominent among public opinion rather than at the political level, where the relationship had carried on functioning quite well.
"Don't forget that Nato is the primary instrument of transatlantic relations, and the Bush Administration leaves that alliance bigger and stronger than ever before," suggests Shepherd.
"Under Bush, Nato has expanded dramatically, bringing in 10 new members."
In a new book, l'Amerique, est-elle une Menace pour le Monde? (Is America a Threat to the World?), French analyst Armand Laferrere pleads for Bush critics to take a closer look at his record.
In his second term of office, says Laferrere, Bush "almost invariably" pursued the advice of multilateralists.
Bush could do little about the Iraq War which he started in 2003, but nonetheless began to build a constructive relationship with the two big European holdouts, Germany and France.
