Europe hopes for change with US elections[fr][de] 

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. 

Commenting on the primaries, the President of the European Parliament's Socialist Group Poul Nyrup Rasmussen said: "It feels like the end of the conservative era in America […] The Democrats are attracting a new generation into politics." 

"Whoever wins the Democratic nomination still has a fight to beat the Republicans but I sense a hunger for change," he added. 

But former German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor Joschka Fischer said Europeans were likely to be disappointed in their hopes for a fundamental change in American foreign policy. "It would take a medium-sized political miracle for these hopes not to be disappointed, and such a miracle will not happen - whoever is elected," he wrote for the Project Syndicate-Institute for Human Sciences. 

"Bush neither invented American unilateralism nor triggered the transatlantic rift between the United States and Europe. To be sure, Bush reinforced both trends, but their real causes lie in objective historical factors, namely America being the sole world power since 1989 and Europe's self-inflicted weakness," he commented, concluding: "As long as America remains the sole world power, the next American president will be neither able nor willing to change the basic framework of America's foreign policy."

The London-based Economist publication agreed that Europeans are likely to be disappointed if they are hoping for a major shift in policies towards more multilateralism, adding that "nor is European enthusiasm for either candidate likely to survive the election of Mrs Clinton, Mr Obama, or whoever else becomes president. The person who gets voters' nod will rule as an American, promoting American interests around the world - and no doubt disappointing many watchers from abroad. For Europeans to imagine anything else would be naive indeed". 

Writing for Stratfor's Geopolitical Intelligence Report, George Friedman agrees that the "major geopolitical evolutions – such as the re-emergence of an assertive Russia, Chinese power growing beyond the economic realm and the future of the European Union – are simply non-issues" for all candidates, as the foreign policy debate continues to focus on and be constrained by one issue – Iraq.