Bush met at the White House with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who holds the rotating presidencies of the EU and the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
The leaders were not expected to agree on concrete steps to battle global warming, but were to describe the problem in a joint statement as a common challenge requiring "urgent, sustained, global action," a US official said.
They were also slated to push ahead with lowering trade barriers and inking an agreement aiming to erase differences on regulation -- in the automobile or pharmaceutical sectors and on intellectual property.
They were also expected to sidestep four-year-old disputes over the war in Iraq and stress their cooperation on issues like Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Middle East peace process, violence in Darfur, and worries about Russia.
Russia worries
Washington and Brussels worry that Moscow has abandoned pledges to enact democratic reforms and have backed Kosovo formally becoming independent from Serbia -- something fiercely opposed by Russia.
