But what do we get out of it?

The resounding victories of Barack Obama and the Democratic party in the United States are great news for relations between Europe and the United States. Better relations are an unmitigated good. There may have been people who hoped for a more independent Europe as a result of poor relations with the Bush administration. But Europe was split, instead of united, by this antagonism. And it has since only returned to being ineffectual in its foreign policy.

Or: much as I would like for Europe to stop being the playground for American and Russian nuclear positioning by kicking American nukes out, stopping their useless missile defence and stopping the Russians from transporting their (ostensibly conventional) Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, this is not going to happen.

Still, there are a number of foreign policy or international issues on which the major European countries (France, Germany and the UK, to wit) are in agreement, have backing from most other countries, and might thus move together to use the opportunity window presented by the early days of the Obama presidency. He'll be happy to get a quick foreign policy success! Here's what I think we should ask for and what we could offer in return:

• An end to Operation Enduring ForceFreedom in Afghanistan and negotiations with the Taliban.

The command in Afghanistan currently continues to be split between NATO's 'International Security Assistance Force' and the original war effort under American leadership, OEF. The former has 51,000 troops, the latter around 20,000. The war effort is now, however, shared with ISAF. There may be a tactical reason to let some commando forces continue counterterrorism under a different command. However, that is not what most of those 20,000 troops are doing, most are fighting the same war against the Taliban that ISAF is. With more troops in ISAF after Obama's proposed surge, the Americans can continue their 'leading' role, but would at least have to clear their efforts with the NATO allies, instead of also having their own, separate, unaccountable operation. Europe could offer a few more troops and much more funds for reconstruction and training in return.

Europe (to be precise, the UK) has been leading the way in negotiations with the Taliban, but has suffered several setbacks as the Americans keep dragging their feet and undermining the same efforts that gave them relative peace and quiet in the Iraqi province of Anbar. Maybe Senator John McCain could seat Obama, Merkel, Brown and Sarkozy together in a room and tell them to just, really, stop the bullshit. More plausibly, Brown and Miliband should get their colleagues from France and Germany to join them in sending a clear signal to Washington that negotiations with (elements of) the Taliban are going to be a condition for their continued engagement in Afghanistan.

• An American commitment to meet the obligations of the Rio convention

The United States may have rejected the Kyoto protocol under Bush, and will join it now. It is too late, and America is too far behind. The only thing their joining now would accomplish is a huge transfer of wealth to the Ukraine and Russia (if you're curious, read up on hot air). The US is not going to do that. However, the EU has a huge stake in getting the Americans to sign on to the next agreement. And to do something in the mean while that looks like it is embedded in the international process.

Now, Kyoto is a protocol under the Rio Convention (UNFCCC) that sets quantitative restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions for most of the developed countries, during the 2008-2012 period. If you're not familiar with the whole thing, process that sentence first. To continue, the US did sign and ratify the Rio Convention. Here is something that convention says:

In order to promote progress [...], each of [the developed countries] shall communicate [...] detailed information on its policies and measures [...], as well as on its resulting projected anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases [...] for the period referred to in subparagraph (a) [1992-2000], with the aim of returning individually or jointly to their 1990 levels these anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases [...].

Now under Kyoto, the developed countries pushed this target further towards the future by adopting stronger measures, but with a longer horizon. The United States, in the negotiations, took on an 8 percent reduction target with regard to 1990 emissions. As said, they did not ratify this. But technically, they are still obliged to reduce to 1990 emission levels. In 2004, the US were 15.8 percent above 1990 emissions. This probably increased up to 2007, but during this year I think the US has seen a notable decline due to the high oil price and the financial meltdown. With the right set of measures, they could well be down to 1990 levels in 2012.

• American participation in the post-Kyoto agreement

A future agreement on climate change will have to take considerations of fairness into account more explicitly. This will, ideally, have two elements that are relevant for US Americans. First, there will need to be a more robust adaptation fund. The climate impacts of the medium term future are going to be mainly caused by countries that are currently wealthy. They should pay for the resulting net damages in proportion to their historically accumulated emissions. This ideal is never going to be realised in full, but steps toward it are steps toward greater justice.

On the other side, we should move towards getting a harmonised quantity of per capita emissions, with a convergence point in the year 2050. This can be arranged fairly under a contraction and convergence model. This would give the United States of America a slightly higher emissions cap relative to the European Union, as compared to the Kyoto protocol, as the USA has added more people.

• Getting official labour and environmental standards in international trade

Right now all the action is in saving the financial sector. The financial sector is a crucial facilitator for other parts of the economy, and the current crisis has already started to affect logistics, manufacturing and various non-financial services. Now, our entire economy is leveraged, including the money we do our daily transactions with. This whole house of cards may yet come falling down (as of yet it is only wobbling) in which case we'll end up living in a different world. But in that world, there is still going to be international trade in resources, goods, and services. And it will still be important to people's lifes to regulate that in a way that betters the lifes of everyone.

The Democrats are naturally more sympathetic to the European take on this matter, and may in fact end up pushing some European countries to accept that trade needs to come with standards not just on products but also on production. However, the UK, France and Germany currently do accept this and should recruit the Americans to form a concerted position. Because this will still require quite a push to get accepted by India and China.

As for the financial issues, I think something like a minimal tobin tax may be a good idea to stop the sector from acquiring the dangerously dominant position that caused (as a major factor) the current crisis. Allocation should move to a more subservient role. Another sensible policy would be to have a common position on general taxes on capital accumulation and tax paradises. But I don't know if this is something that the main European countries are actually on one line about. So that's just my view, rather than any immediate option.