European nations have been slow to help Mr. Obama with the major points on his agenda. ‘They have so far agreed to take only a handful of detainees from the Guantanamo detention center, which Mr. Obama vowed to close within a year. And European countries that belong, to NATO have also been slow to provide Mr. Obama much extra help in Afghanistan, in part because many Europeans strongly oppose the war and Washington has not yet agreed upon a compelling new strategy to succeed in Afghanistan. Jean-David Levitte, Mr. Sarkozy's diplomatic counselor and former ambassador to the United States, said that Europe nonetheless remained Washington's best ally. Mr. Obama’s election was enthralling to Europeans, he said, “transforming the image of the United States in just several months.” He said, “We all feel a stake in the U.S.” Is Europe ready to respond? “Of course it is,” he said, citing more than 35,000 European troops now in Afghanistan. “If not the Europeans, who would there be? No one else.” In a report to be published on Monday, the European Council on Foreign Relations, an independent research group, urged European Union governments to shake off illusions about the trans-Atlantic relationship if they wanted to avoid global irrelevance.