DW: Europeans Revel in US Republican Defeat

Europeans Revel in US Republican Defeat

The European reaction to Democrat wins in midterm US elections was overwhelmingly positive. Observers said they hoped the US and Europe could start healing widening trans-Atlantic rifts.

Political observers in Europe said they were hoping that a decisive advance by Democrats in the US election could usher in a new era in trans-Atlantic cooperation.

The Bush administration was widely seen to have alienated Europe and much of the rest of the world by its "with us or against us" approach to Iraq, alleged human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay prison, and its stance on ecological issues – particularly its refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

"The Democrats will make life unpleasant for Bush, but they are not going to get much in his way because they don't want to be tarred by defeat in Iraq," Francois Heisbourg, a special councillor at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris told Reuters.

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