Washington - US President George W Bush will be looking to set an agenda for the future when he attends his final G8 summit next month, even if his limited time left in office means he will have little say in how it plays out. Bush, due to leave the White House in January, will seek out common ground with his European partners to deal with a host of international issues but will also be setting the table for his hopeful successors, Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain.
"He can set the agenda by saying 'I am concerned about the following'," said Jackson Janes of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington. "It's a signal as much to the Europeans as it is to McCain and Obama."
If his recent farewell trip to Europe is any indication, Iran's nuclear activities will be high on the list when the leaders of the eight top democratic and industrial powers meet in Hokkaido, Japan from July 7-9. Iran came up at just about every stop on the continent from Rome to Paris to London.
It will be a victory for Bush if the European Union, which is considering imposing new sanctions on Iran, decides to do so.
The US urged the EU to act against Iran because of Russian and Chinese reluctance on the UN Security Council to take tougher actions against Tehran, which maintains its nuclear work is solely for generating energy.
Even though Bush is still deeply unpopular abroad, relations between the US in Europe on a political level are better than they were four years ago, when the US-led invasion of Iraq ruptured transatlantic ties.
But since then, more conservative governments have been elected in Germany and France, and more recently Italy, giving Bush more partners to work with in shaping an international agenda.
Although he has not gone as far as French President Nicolas Sarkozy or German Chancellor Angela Merkel would like, Bush has pledged to work toward halting global warming - a problem his administration wouldn't even acknowledge a few years ago.
But much of the world has begun looking past Bush and toward Obama and McCain, two candidates who have promised to adopt a multilateral approach to foreign affairs.
A poll released in June by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found majorities in most countries surveyed believed that US foreign policy will change for the better once Bush is out of office, regardless of who wins the November 4 election.
Obama had an edge over McCain, who backed Bush's decision to invade Iraq and has promised to maintain the US role in the unpopular war until victory has been achieved. Obama received better marks than McCain in 20 of the 22 European, African and East Asian countries surveyed by Pew.
More than 60 per cent of respondents in France, Germany and Spain believed a new US president will usher in better relations.
But it will be important for the winner of the election to quickly outline an agenda and begin working with European allies likely to hesitate setting priorities with a current president who is so close to leaving office.
"They don't want to get too far out," Janes said.
