A star-struck Europe is squandering the Obama presidency because individual leaders are too busy competing for the President’s attention, a report warned on the eve of an EU-US summit in Washington seen as crucial to saving world climate change talks.

European governments have failed to put aside internal divisions to join the US and China as global partners, according to a study from the European Council on Foreign Relations after consulting all 27 EU countries.

Separate EU delegations arrive in Washington today, one led by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall, and one led by Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish Prime Minister, on behalf of the EU’s rotating presidency, for a long-planned summit. Both will meet President Obama but the duplication seems to make the case that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has also been arguing for on behalf of Tony Blair: a strong EU president to be able to deal with the US coherently.

The Lisbon treaty, expected to come into force this year, will create a new president for Europe but a number of the EU’s smaller countries want to see a “chairman rather than a chief”, fearing that a strong character will cut them out of the picture. This stance is seen as a threat to Mr Blair’s chances.

“Europe has the US President it wished for, but Barack Obama lacks the strong transatlantic partner he wants,” the report, written for the think-tank by two American academics concludes. “Seen from Washington, there is something almost infantile about how European governments behave towards them — a combination of attention seeking and responsibility shirking,” it added.

“Our audit suggests that, despite the expansion and evolution of the EU ... member states continue to think of the transatlantic relationship in terms of Nato, for security issues, and of bilateral relations, in which a majority of European governments imagine they have a ‘special relationship’ with Washington.”

The first formal EU-US summit since President Obama took office — after an informal meeting in Prague in April — will include talks on climate change, economic recovery, Afghanistan-Pakistan and Iran.

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