So what happens now?

Most Europeans are aghast at the re-election of President George W. Bush. But their gut dislike of his administration is often based on a misapprehension of the differences between him and John Kerry.

Take Iraq. It might be President Bush's fault but the mess is there. With all the multilateral will in the world, President Kerry would have been mired in an occupation until, according to optimistic estimates, early 2006 - and no, he would not have been able to count on a much larger European military presence than there is now.

The same goes for US foreign policy generally. We would see a change in style and rhetoric in the Kerry administration but no great swerves. US interests and policy transcend particular administrations.

Saying that differences should not be overestimated is not the same as saying there are no differences at all. In a minute I will consider the impact of this re-election on the challenges offered by the southern Mediterranean. But first a look at the US domestic scene, where President Bush is likely to have the most distinctive impact.

He is the first Republican President in scores of years to enjoy a Republican House of Representatives. The Senate, too, is controlled by his party. It is unlikely that this combination will be enough to enable him to use Congress to reverse the current abortion legislation or to amend the constitution to outlaw gay marriage. However, it will probably enable him to pursue huge tax cuts and privatisation of social security. Some of his own powerful supporters look forward to the weakening of the power of the unions. President Bush also has a likely chance to appoint one or more judges to the US Supreme Court. It is made up of nine judges (serving for life or till voluntary retirement); a number of recent decisions have come down to a 5-4 ruling; so President Bush might get to give the court a conservative direction that will remain for perhaps a generation.

In this arena President Bush might manage to see abortion legislation reversed in some aspects and the transfer of some federal powers back to the states. The latter might mean that powers concerning environmental regulation and anti-discrimination legislation for local business will become options open to states - should this occur, here the European social model, moving in the opposite direction, might truly develop as a rival alternative to the US.

On the international scene, it is worth pointing out that (beside the hot buttons of Iraq, North Korea and Iran) President Bush will have to handle delicate political and economic transitions in the southern Mediterranean.

Between now and 2008 it is quite possible that we shall see a change at the helm of the Palestinian Authority (even now, Yasser Arafat is receiving clinical treatment in Paris) and Egypt (Hosni Mubarak's uncertain health is a subject of persistent rumour in Cairo).

Mr Arafat's departure would be greeted with relief by President Bush, the removal of a major obstacle to a settlement with Israel; but even if that sentiment is allowed the transition will still be delicate and under the eyes of a Presidency that has so far manifestly favoured Israel. But a Kerry Presidency, beholden to around 75 per cent of the American Jewish vote, seeing re-election and showing a traditional Democrat bias in favour of Israel, is unlikely to have been much different.

A transfer of power in Egypt, a quasi-client state, would be of a different order. Egypt has twice seen the constitutional appointment of a new President over the last 34 years. But a new President would be coming in at a time of growing inequality in an already massively unequal society; a time when the economy must undergo such painful reforms that economic liberalisation is taking place under the protection of growing internal military surveillance.

It is one of President Bush's ambitions to see an Arab free trade area form by 2010. It will be under his watch that the relatively new rulers of Morocco, Syria and Jordan, and the new economic order in Libya, will come, or try to come, into their own. A new political rhetoric is taking shape in these countries in which legitimacy is established on the basis of economic performance. Jordan has been helped massively by being granted favoured trading status by President Bush in his first term but can these countries liberalise their economies further without popular unrest?

It is an open question, with different answers for each country. But economic liberalisation on its own will only exacerbate their disadvantages relative to the north. So, will President Bush, instinctively averse to environmental regulation and multilateral political cooperation, come to recognise that stability in the southern Mediterranean requires both of those?

A Kerry Presidency might have made a difference here. But before Europeans grimace too ostentatiously they should ask themselves whether the EU has itself so far shown any serious signs of facing up to the challenge of a genuine, multi-dimensional regional partnership.