Although it still remains far from clear who will be sitting in the White House this time next year, EU politicians are looking forward to a wind of change after years of frustration with President George W. Bush's foreign policies.
The race between the Democrat candidates saw Barack Obama, the charismatic senator from Illinois who is vying to become the first black president, and his rival, former first lady Hillary Clinton – also hoping to make history as America's first woman president – coming in just about neck and neck after both won large numbers of delegates.
So far, Obama looks to have taken 13 states and Clinton eight, but that included the key states of California and New York – the two states offering the country's largest number of delegates, allowing her to inch into the lead.
In the Republican race, Senator John McCain of Arizona emerged as the clear front-runner, winning at least nine states, but he failed to knock out his rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee in the most-closely watched elections by Europeans in a long time.
From the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the US failure to commit boldly to climate change mitigation measures (EurActiv 16/06/07), Europeans are hoping for a fresh start. And it is the Democrat candidates that are garnering the broadest support across the 'Old Continent', with media coverage largely focusing on the Obama-Clinton race.
The main hope is that the new leader will re-orient US foreign policy in a more multilateral direction, with increased focus on cooperating with Europe politically, militarily and environmentally.
However, most analysts point out that, whichever candidate gets into the White House, a sea change in foreign policy is unlikely and interest in the EU project will remain on the backburner.
