"We're hopeful there'll be a number of concrete goals that come out of this," US ambassador to the European Union, William Kennard, said ahead of a November 20 US-EU summit being held in Lisbon, Portugal.

The event, to be held straight after a NATO summit in the same city, will be Obama's first encounter with EU president Herman Van Rompuy, whose position was created under the EU's new Lisbon Treaty which came into force last December.

Following the treaty, which it was hoped would give the bloc's half a billion people a stronger say in world affairs, there have been growing fears that Washington is losing interest in Europe.

Last spring a planned Obama summit with the EU was cancelled at the last minute while emerging powers such as China have upped their profile on the world stage.

Sweeping aside such concerns, Kennard said "we have a deep and intense relationship day to day. On all major foreign policy issues we are engaged with Europe."

"You don't test a relationship on face-time, that's not appropriate."

Kennard said that jobs and economic growth would top the agenda at the brief summit, with leaders expected to go over the conclusions of the G20 summit taking place this week.

But trade issues, development aid, and ways of countering mutual security threats from "terrorism that is intensifying and is an ever-changing threat" would also be on the table.

There were also hopes the summit, which will bring together not only Obama and Van Rompuy but also the head of the EU's executive arm, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, would produce a joint position ahead of the Cancun Conference on climate change that kicks off November 29.

"We as an administration are committed and aggressive" on fighting global warming, Kennard said, despite the fact that Obama's climate change legislation has failed to pass through Congress.

There would be efforts at the summit to hammer out a joint position. "Coordination will be about going into Cancun together."

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