As President Barack Obama travels to Europe this week for a series of summits, Europolitics lifts the curtain on the people in Washington who really count when it comes to shaping policies and positions that affect the European Union. Rather than merely list the big power players in Washington generally, we have focused on those that are specific interest to the EU, in the Obama administration, in Congress as well as in the think tank and media world.

Some of these people, such as the Vice-President Joe Biden, will be familiar faces to Europeans already. Others, however, such as Obama’s so-called climate tsar Carol Browner, have a lower profile and yet will be involved in taking key policy decisions affecting EU-US relations. Still others, such as California Senator Diane Feinstein, may be familiar figures in their own right, but their particular significance to EU relations is less well known.

Looking at the picks from the Obama administration, while the president has made efforts to reach out to Republicans in appointing his cabinet, it is notable at least looking at this list how many served under the last Democratic US President, Bill Clinton. That could be good news for the EU given that transatlantic relations were generally more harmonious in the Clinton era than under President George W. Bush. In Congress, the leading figures of interest to the EU are all Democrats but that does not necessarily mean they are singing from the same page as Europe on the issues of common interest. Congressman Jim Oberstar, for example, promises to be a formidable opponent to further liberalisation of transatlantic aviation.

JOE BIDEN

Vice-president. The office of vice-president comes with virtually no job description in the US Constitution so it has historically been up to the president and VP of the day to carve out a role. In the case of Biden, a former senator from Delaware, it is already clear that Obama wants him to play a major role in setting foreign and defence policy. This is not that surprising as Biden has a long-standing interest in, and knowledge of, foreign affairs, having chaired the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for many years. Biden is well known and well liked in Europe. He recently delivered the keynote speech at the Munich security conference, where he unveiled Obama’s policy on Russia, Georgia, NATO, missile defence and nuclear disarmament.

JOHN BRENNAN

Deputy national security advisor, National Security Council. As counter-terror policy advisor to Obama, Brennan will be in charge of reviewing the US policy on rendition, detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects. Obama asked for such a review two days after entering the White House in the same executive order that requires the terror suspect centre at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be shut by January 2010. Brennan is no stranger to controversy. He was tipped to be Obama’s pick as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), but he stepped aside after civil liberties advocates protested, noting that Brennan was a top CIA official when the much-criticised renditions and interrogations programmes of the Bush administration were devised. Brennan gave television interviews in the past defending the practice of rendition (extra-judicial transfer of terrorist suspects between countries) and water-boarding (an interrogation technique once authorised by President Bush that many consider to be torture and which Obama has since outlawed).

LAEL BRAINARD

Undersecretary for international affairs, Department of Treasury. As Europe and the US move to tighten up regulation in the financial sector in response to last autumn’s near collapse of the banking system and the ensuing credit and economic crisis, transatlantic coordination will be crucial. Brainard will play an important role here in liaising with her counterparts in the European Commission, which is preparing a raft of new regulations. A former economic policy advisor under President Clinton, she was until recently the director of global economy and development at the Brookings Institution, the Washington think tank that has been a ripe recruiting ground for the Obama administration.

CAROL BROWNER

Assistant to the president for energy and climate change. Dubbed the ‘climate tsar’ in the press, Browner is likely to be the lynchpin in formulating the Obama administration’s policy on climate change - an issue of central importance in the transatlantic relationship. She is well-trusted by the EU, having served as administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency under President Clinton. But there are several other competing players on Obama’s green team: Lisa Jackson, the new EPA administrator, Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the Council on Environmental Quality and Todd Stern, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s climate envoy (see separate entry). It is not yet clear what the division of labour will be between them and, most importantly from the EU’s viewpoint, who will be the one formulating the US position at United Nations talks for a post-2012 climate treaty.

JOHN BYERLY

Deputy assistant secretary, transportation affairs, Department of State. Byerly is a very well-know figure to Europeans, having for many years been Washington’s head negotiator in the EU-US Open Sky talks to liberalise their aviation industries. These talks culminated in a bilateral agreement, in 2007, and talks for a follow-up agreement were launched in 2008, although have not progressed much so far as both sides are waiting to see what position President Obama will take. There remains doubt over whether Byerly will stay on in this post. In his favour, he is a popular and trusted figure to Europeans. He is generally seen as an honest broker who is trying to negotiate a deal that will prove politically palatable for the US Congress, which has consistently resisted the EU demand that foreign airlines be allowed take over US carriers.

GREG CRAIG

White House counsel. The president’s principal legal advisor will be helping Obama to navigate tricky legal questions, including those that have caused friction in transatlantic relations, such as the US government’s powers to intercept and monitor phone calls, e-mails, bank transfers, as well as its right to capture, detain, transfer and interrogate terrorist suspects overseas. Craig worked for President Clinton in the 1990s, helping him fight impeachment charges. In his legal career, Craig is perhaps best known for having successfully defended John Hinckley Jr. in 1981, who shot then President Ronald Reagan but was acquitted on grounds of insanity.

IVO DAALDER

Ambassador-designate to NATO. The Dutch-born academic and author was President Clinton’s advisor on European affairs at the National Security Council where he formulated US policy on Bosnia. He is yet another scholar from the Brookings Institution to have jumped ship onto the Obama team. Daalder served as a foreign policy advisor for Obama during the 2007-2008 presidential campaign. The current NATO Ambassador is Kurt Volker, whom President Bush appointed in 2008.

ANTHONY FAIOLA

Journalist, The Washington Post. Given that trade is the most important policy area when it comes to the EU’s dealings with Washington, Faiola’s position as globalisation correspondent for the Post, the must-read newspaper for Washington policy makers, makes him one to watch for Europe. Faiola writes about the impact of globalisation on the lives of people in the developing and developed worlds. He notably reported on the controversial ‘buy American’ clause in the US stimulus package that the EU fought unsuccessfully to have deleted from the bill. Faiola spent a decade overseas as the Post’s bureau chief in Buenos Aires and Tokyo.

DIANE FEINSTEIN

US senator. A high-profile figure in US politics with a long and illustrious career that includes being mayor of San Francisco from 1978-1988 and Democratic senator from California since 1992, Feinstein is interesting from an EU viewpoint because of her hostility towards the US Visa Waiver Programme. Whereas the EU is lobbying intensively to get the remaining five EU countries still not on the programme added, Feinstein may be the single biggest stumbling block. She believes that the programme, which allows visa-free travel to the US for trips of up to 90 days, is ripe for exploitation by foreign terrorists, in particular Al-Qaida. A member - although not the chairwoman - of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in whose remit the visa waiver issue falls, Feinstein recently introduced legislation that raises the bar both for aspiring countries to be added to the programme and for existing members to stay on it.

BARNEY FRANK

US congressman. The Massachusetts legislator is a forceful - and some might add hot-headed - figure in US politics, who is of particular interest to the EU because he chairs the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services. In this capacity, he is the central figure steering through new legislation on issues like capital requirements for banks, credit ratings agencies, financial instruments like credit default swaps and a new supervisory framework for the financial sector. While Frank is in tune with the EU in that he favours more regulation, future clashes are possible if the EU proceeds with legislation that is not compatible with bills he is pushing. For example, when French Socialist MEP Pervenche Berès, chairwoman of Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, recently met Frank in Washington, he warned her against moving forward with EU legislation on credit default swaps as the US was still deciding how to deal with them.

DANIEL FRIED

Special envoy on Guantanamo closure, State Department. Fried will be the person liaising with the EU on possible transfers of Guantanamo detainees to Europe. This is likely to occur in the coming months as President Obama has ordered Guantanamo closed by January 2010 and his team has made it clear it would like Europe to take some detainees. Fried is well-placed to deal with European governments having, under the Bush administration, been assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs at the State Department. His encyclopaedic knowledge of European politics will prove useful in navigating this most thorny of dossiers. He landed himself in hot water with the Turkish government in 2007 when, commenting on a threatened military coup, he said “we don’t take sides” - a remark from which the US administration quickly backtracked.

MICHAEL FROMAN

Deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs, National Security Council. Froman is involved in coordinating the EU and US response to the economic crisis. He has also been mentioned as Obama’s likely pick to co-chair the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC). If appointed to the latter, he would be in charge of trying to integrate the EU and US economies by removing regulatory trade barriers. The TEC is still in its infancy, having been set up by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Bush in 2007. The jury is still out over whether it will achieve concrete results or fall by the wayside due to lack of interest, notably on the US side. Should Froman get the job, the EU will be pleased because he works directly for the White House and thus may have better access to Obama than someone based in a government department.

PHIL GORDON

Assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, State Department. Though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be the face of the US overseas, her involvement in day-to-day policy towards Europe is likely to be limited as her attention is largely focused on the major trouble spots, such as Afghanistan, the Middle East, Iran and North Korea. Gordon is a political appointee - still to be confirmed by the Senate - with a wide geographic remit extending from Greenland to Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, the Balkans and the Caucasus. Like many other Obama appointees, Gordon was poached from one of the leading think tanks in Washington, the Brookings Institution.

DANIEL HAMILTON

Director of the Centre for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Hamilton has been one of the most enthusiastic crusaders in Washington for further enhancing the transatlantic relationship. His annually updated book, ‘The Transatlantic Economy’, reminds Washington policy makers that despite all the talk about the rise of China and India, the transatlantic economy remains by far the most important economic relationship the US has with any of its trade partners. A big fan of the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) since its inception in 2007, Hamilton consistently seeks to persuade Washington’s political elite of the TEC’s usefulness as a tool for eliminating regulatory trade barriers, which is what matters most for EU-US relations because tariff-related barriers are minimal at this point.

RON KIRK

United States trade representative. The former mayor of Dallas is the EU’s main interlocutor on trade matters. He has only recently been confirmed by the US Senate so it is not yet clear where he will position himself on the protectionism/free trade spectrum. As the official in charge of filing and pursuing WTO complaints, he will have to devise a strategy for dealing with major policy differences with the EU on issues like genetically modified organisms, hormone-treated beef and chlorine-treated poultry. While he directed some hard-hitting remarks at the EU during his Senate confirmation hearing - vowing to challenge any EU food safety regulation that is based in sound science - this may have been partly for show, to persuade the senators to back him. Behind the scenes, Kirk has been negotiating with the EU to resolve the long-standing EU ban on hormone-treated US beef. He has so far said little about how keen he is to push for an agreement in the Doha round of WTO talks.

JANET NAPOLITANO

Secretary, Department of Homeland Security. Napolitano occupies one of the most important cabinet positions but she is also someone with whom the EU will be dealing a lot. The former governor of Arizona has responsibility for the US Visa Waiver Programme; the EU-US Passenger Name Record Agreement requiring airlines to transmit passengers’ personal data to US authorities; and the 100% container scanning rule that requires all US-bound maritime containers to be scanned before leaving their port of departure (the EU fiercely opposes the latter). At her Senate confirmation hearing, Napolitano showed an awareness of the importance of these dossiers and yet was careful not to give a detailed position, saying she needed time to review the dossiers. With her Arizona background, Napolitano is very interested in tightening border controls with Mexico and it is possible she may focus her energies more on land borders. Many in Washington feel this is where action is most needed now given that the security measures adopted in response to the 11 September 2001 attacks focused heavily on airport security. This may not be bad news for the EU as Napolitano could be open to including all EU27 on the Visa Waiver Programme.

JIM OBERSTAR

US congressman. As the chairman of the House of Representatives Transportation Committee, Oberstar has been something of a thorn in the side of the EU. An unapologetic protectionist for the US air industry, he is the most powerful opponent of the EU’s demand that US law be changed to allow US airlines to be taken over by European ones. This is the single biggest stumbling block in the Open Sky agreement aviation liberalisation talks. Oberstar insists that scrapping the protectionist US law, which dates from the 1930s, would be detrimental to national security interests. He has recently introduced a bill to further tighten up the law - a move that has the European Commission up in arms. Although the Open Sky agreement itself can be adopted without needing congressional approval, Congress’ backing is required to change the airline ownership restrictions. Though not all of his colleagues in Congress share his view on the ownership question, Oberstar’s position as committee chair will make them reluctant to challenge him.

CHARLES RANGEL

US congressman. The New York lawmaker chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, which has the lead in setting US trade policy. Wrangel would have to give the green light to any move to renew the US administration’s fast-track negotiating mandate called Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). This matters for the EU enormously because renewal of TPA, which expired in July 2007, is seen as crucial to getting an agreement in the World Trade Organisation’s Doha round. However, it is unlikely that Wrangel will be in any hurry to renew the TPA given that his party (Democrats) is sceptical of, if not downright hostile to, further trade liberalisation.

MARCIE RIES

Principal deputy assistant secretary, State Department. A further step down the ladder from Assistant Secretary Gordon (see separate entry), Ries is in charge of the European and Eurasian Affairs Bureau, her remit extending to the EU, NATO and Western Europe. She is a career diplomat (ie not a political appointee) and has only been in this job since summer 2008, having previously served as ambassador to Albania (2005-2007) and chief of mission to Kosovo (2003-2004).

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

Governor, California. The only non-Washingtonian on the list, Europolitics thought it worth including ‘The Terminator’ because of the influence he exerts on the US political scene in the climate change debate. A moderate, pro-business Republican, Arnie is a formidable force pushing the US to follow California’s lead by enacting a cap and trade scheme and making ambitious cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. As such, he is an indispensable ally to both Obama and the EU. Married to Maria Shriver from the country’s most famous political dynasty, the Kennedys (who, unlike Schwarzenegger, are Democrats), the Austrian-born governor is a regular visitor to Washington and possesses the kind of star quality that gives him easy access to Obama.

JEANNE SHAHEEN

US senator. The newly-elected Democratic senator from New Hampshire chairs the Senate Subcommittee on European Affairs. She has already shown signs of genuine interest in her post by pledging to hold hearings on issues of European concern. Her predecessor as chair of that committee, a certain senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama, was criticised in the 2007-2008 presidential campaign for failing to organise a single hearing. Yet given her committee’s broad remit, it is doubtful Shaheen will be that influential even if she makes more of an effort than Obama did. It will probably be the chairs of congressional committees that handle dossiers of specific European interest, such as transportation (Jim Oberstar - see separate entry) or financial services (Barney Frank - see separate entry) that will have a more tangible impact.

TODD STERN

Special envoy on climate change, Department of State. Stern is a key figure in the United Nations talks due to culminate in a new climate treaty in Copenhagen in December 2009. While there are many players involved in drafting the US position for Copenhagen (see separate entry for Carol Browner), Stern will be the EU’s main interlocutor. As a special envoy, he has the advantage of not needing Senate confirmation. However, he has the disadvantage of being less familiar with how the State Department bureaucracy works than a career diplomat would have. Stern previously served under President Clinton, both as climate policy advisor and as the main US negotiator at the UN talks that led to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol.