The idea of a loyal pro-American "New Europe” was always a bit of a leap given that it was based on fickle coalition governments in power in Italy, Spain, Poland and Czech Republic and to a lesser extent in Romania and Hungary. Certainly both France under Chirac and Germany under Schroeder were arrogant in their dealings with these new EU members and did little to address their concerns. At the end of the day these countries now share sovereignty within the EU.

Of course these "new" Europeans were paranoid about their Russian neighbour, looked to the US through the halo effect of the cold war, and had unrealistic expectations of the actual benefits compliance with the foreign policy objectives of the United States would bring.

These electorates asked themselves what exactly did Polish and Spanish and Italian troops die for in Iraq, why is it that they hosted black sites for torture often little more than ten years after the demise of their own secret police and their fascist pasts, and why complicate an all ready difficult relationship with the bear next door in order to guarantee the security of the US mainland?

One could also see the tizzy the British got themselves into when it was realised that the missile interceptors would be placed in the Czech Republic and not in the UK. It was practically embarrassing, and right on top of the debate over the utter dependence on the US for the updating of their Trident nuclear deterrent coupled with the deep unpopularity of UK's association with Bush’s Iraq policy; all have seriously damaged the credibility of the “special relationship”. Britain as Greece to American’s Rome? Scholars will tell you that Greece became merely a province in the Roman Empire without influence.

The UK is gradually being “Europeanized” slower of course given its traditional innate conservatism and suspension of that continent a mere 34 km away and not withstanding the determined efforts of Murdoch’s press and the paranoia of the little Englanders, but the British too realize that they weld far greater influence and possibility to direct events to their benefit in cohesion with the rest of Europe and not without, regardless of the “special relationship” across the pond.

Sharkozy as the son of Hungarian immigrants and Merkel as a former Osie are surely more sensitive to these new democracies of Central Europe and now fellow EU members than their predecessors. They too now see the security issues involved in energy dependency on Russia. European politicians realise either can speak in unison and with consensus on their common interests or be divided among themselves as Lilliputians picked off by both the US and Russia.

Simply put, Europe has written off the Bush Administration. The American public is realising that US is not omnipotent and the European public is setting aside their schandenfreud. Both recognize that the other is indispensable to progress on their common concerns in energy security, global climate change, trade, nuclear proliferation and international terrorism, etc. we will see how these issues work themselves out after 2008 US Presidential elections and not before.