Washington  - US President Barack Obama will make his first trip to Europe next week since taking office, hoping his immense popularity on the continent will provide a fresh start in cross- Atlantic relations.

Obama is due to arrive in London to attend Thursday's 20-nation summit on the financial crisis, before heading to France and Germany for a NATO summit April 3-4. Later, he'll stop in Prague for an EU gathering and then Turkey.

By making Europe his first overseas destination, Obama is sending a strong signal of the need for the United States and Europe to work together to tackle the world's challenges, and repair relations that suffered under George W Bush.

Topping the agenda will be the financial crisis that has dumped the United States into its worst recession in decades and sent the global economy plummeting, followed by the conflict in Afghanistan and a host of other issues, ranging from visa regulations to plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

It remains to be seen whether the affection Europeans hold for the first African American to occupy the White House will translate into success at overcoming differences and building a unified approach to address the world's problems.

"He's extremely popular in Europe. That presents an opportunity as well as a challenge," said Karen Donfried, executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. "The challenge is, is he able to turn that tremendous popularity into European support for concrete policies?"

The Obama administration and European leaders have been at odds over how to respond to the economic crisis, raising questions about whether the Group of 20 (G-20) summit will produce a concrete plan to address the market turmoil.

Obama wants European governments to follow the US by spending billions more in economic stimulus, a move most of his counterparts, particularly German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, have flatly rejected.

With the rollout of his market regulation policies last week, Obama helped placate European concerns that insufficient controls in the United States could against produce the risky lending practices that pushed the economy off the cliff.

But some analysts proclaim Obama is in for a bumpy ride in Europe and see deep and complicated differences in trans-Atlantic policies that will not simply be overcome by popularity. Nile Gardiner of the conservative Heritage Foundation said the warm reception Obama receives in Europe will not last behind closed doors.

"Obama is going to be cordially well received and there will probably be big crowds of people trying to see him," Gardiner said. "But behind the scenes, I think that Obama is going to have a very rough ride, actually, and this trip will be a big wake-up call for the Obama administration with regard to US-European relations, which are extremely difficult to wade through at the best of times."

Obama unveiled his revised strategy for Afghanistan on Friday, a plan that could go over well within NATO and Europe because it increases the civilian and diplomatic effort to build good governance and infrastructure in the country, but that is unlikely to translate into more European troops that commanders on the ground say are badly needed.

As during the Bush administration, NATO allies - other than Britain and the Netherlands - have been reluctant to provide more troops or lift restrictions that limit the ones already there to peacekeeping missions that keep them out of the fight in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

NATO will be celebrating its 60th anniversary during the summit in the German and French towns of Kehl and Strasbourg, but the division over Afghanistan poses questions about whether the alliance is undermined by countries picking which missions to support.

Obama, meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Wednesday, said the alliance needs to be prepared to deal with 21st century contingencies like terrorism and weapons proliferation.

"We have a set of challenges that require NATO to shift from the 20th century to the 21st century - issues of terrorism, failed states, nuclear proliferation - a whole host of new challenges," Obama said.

Analysts believe Obama could avoid making demands to European leaders about Afghanistan because he will probably be rebuffed anyway, but could take his case to the European public to try to bolster support for the unpopular conflict.

"Obama has the ability to to reach the public in a way George W Bush did not," Donfried said. "He can reach out to the European public to create a different dynamic, to create a political will to do more."

NATO will be restoring full relations with Russia that were suspended during the invasion of Georgia in August. Obama plans to meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in London as he embarks on a plan to "reset" relations between countries that have fallen to the lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

Obama has signalled a willingness to back off plans initiated by Bush to place a missile-defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The potential deployment was the main force behind deteriorating ties. Obama has sent a letter to Medvedev suggesting there would be less of a need for the system if Iran - with more stringent Russian help - was prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Obama, however, said he will continue to back NATO expansion to countries that meet the criteria to join the alliance, signalling he will not back down to Russian objections.

"My administration is seeking a reset of the relationship with Russia, but in a way that's consistent with NATO membership and consistent with the need to send a clear signal throughout Europe that we are going to continue to abide by the central belief that countries who seek and aspire to join NATO are able to join NATO," Obama said.

Moscow has strongly opposed NATO expansion closer to its borders, particularly NATO's agreement last year to eventually offer membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet states. Obama did not specifically mention the two countries in his statement Wednesday. (dpa)