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On Tuesday night, Donald Trump finally gave the green light to begin the process of handing over power.
At the same time, he reiterated that there had been electoral fraud and that he would continue to contest the results.
Probably nothing more can be expected from Trump.
It was the de facto recognition of his electoral defeat - while at the same time maintaining his unsubstantiated electoral fraud propaganda.
Still, it was an important step for Joe Biden.
Because only if his transition team can go to the ministries and are briefed can the new president be really ready for action on January 20th, the first day of his term of office.
On Monday, Biden presented an impressive team for foreign and security policy, all veterans of the Obama administration.
Most important for Europe are the new Foreign Minister Antony Blinken and the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, both of whom are firmly established in the transatlantic relationship.
"Nobody I know is better networked across the Atlantic," said Wolfgang Ischinger, head of the Munich Security Conference, about Blinken.
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We are back, is the message to the allies.
America wants to be a stable and reliable partner again.
The return of the professionals and the foreign policy establishment, which Trump only viewed with scorn and disregard.
However, not everyone wanted to join in the cheers.
Foreign policy expert Fred Kaplan wrote in the left “Slate” that the new team was so united in their view of the world that there was a risk of “groupthink”.
It is quite possible.
Obama's foreign policy has not been particularly successful
A bigger problem, however, is that the Obama veterans, given their past, are likely to view the Obama years as something akin to the gold standard of American foreign policy.
And that would be a serious mistake.
Sure, compared to the volatile inconsistency of Trump's foreign policy, it's not difficult to paint what was before in rosy tones.
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In fact, Obama's foreign policy was not particularly successful, especially in his second term.
And the world has changed significantly since then.
So for Biden, former Vice President under Obama, it will not be enough to strive for a third Obama term in foreign policy.
Joe Biden occupies the first key posts in his cabinet
The newly elected US President Joe Biden wants to announce the first decisions about his cabinet.
Antony Blinken, a former employee of Barack Obama, is to take over the State Department.
Source: WELT / Steffen Schwarzkpof
This is most evident when it comes to China.
Obama had made the largest attempt in US history to involve China, define common interests and make Beijing a responsible member of the international system created by the West.
By the end of Obama's term in office, however, it was clear that the policy of the outstretched hand had failed.
But instead of forcefully containing China's aggressive expansion in the South China Sea, for example, the Obama administration remained largely passive.
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In the past four years, China has become even more repressive internally and even more aggressive externally.
Beijing has also launched an anti-Western propaganda campaign around the world and is clearly positioning itself in ideological opposition to the West.
It was also right that Trump addressed China's unfair trade practices much more aggressively than presidents before him.
Even in Europe a rethink has started.
European concerns about China's rise and allegations against Beijing are very similar to American ones.
It is therefore both necessary and desirable that both sides of the Atlantic agree on a common policy and a coordinated approach to address this challenge more proactively than in the past.
Trump rarely had a concept in foreign policy, but it wasn't always wrong for him to challenge the prevailing status quo.
This was most evident in the Middle East.
Trump has done away with the idea, repeated mantra-like by the EU and the Obama administration, that the Middle East conflict must first be resolved in order to achieve an Israeli-Arab rapprochement in the region.
Israel's peace agreements with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan and the secret visit of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Saudi Arabia last weekend show that this idea is outdated and how much the strategic coordinates in the region have shifted.
So it would be wrong to go back to the well-trodden Middle East thinking that is still en vogue in Europe.
The Obama administration had also become increasingly hostile to Israel in its final stages, another mistake that Biden should not return to.
It is necessary to develop a more balanced American peace plan than the one that Trump presented.
Equally necessary, however, is to cast out some illusions from the Palestinian leadership and to make it clear to them that the time is over when they could hold the entire Arab world hostage of their territorial conflict with Israel.
The same applies to the nuclear conflict with Iran.
The agreement negotiated by Obama was flawed in many respects, which has now also been admitted by the leading European co-architects, including Germany.
Jake Sullivan, Biden's new National Security Advisor, negotiated the agreement on the American side.
The temptation is likely to be great to simply return to the old status.
But that would also be a mistake.
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Trump achieved little with his tough sanctions regime against Tehran because he never showed the mullahs a diplomatic way out and they were not interested in negotiations with Washington either.
The Trump sanctions have put a lot of pressure on the regime and now offer Biden a lever to negotiate a new deal with better terms.
Exactly what the Europeans were ready to do at the beginning of Trump's term of office, but which the president did not take up because it was more important to him to get out of the nuclear agreement unilaterally.
Obama's foreign policy team ended up showing an arrogant defensive stance against any criticism.
Many of the actors at the time are now returning to leading positions.
And when it comes to Iran, it remains to be seen whether they are willing to admit past mistakes - or whether their own pride prevents a reassessment.
In the transatlantic relationship, too, it is important that Biden does not simply go back to the old state, but instead uses the shock that the Trump administration has triggered in Europe.
In the Obama years and before that, it was common for Americans to politely express their displeasure at the lack of European military spending behind closed doors - and then just as politely to ignore them by Europeans.
Convenient savings for the military
Because states like Germany in particular had made themselves comfortable to save their military, to spend the money on social benefits and otherwise to rely on the American promise of protection.
Biden is now facing a delicate balancing act.
On the one hand, he must make it clear that America remains firmly committed to European defense.
On the other hand, Europeans cannot be so sure that they will simply fall back into the old maelstrom.
It is of central importance for the future of the transatlantic alliance that Biden insists much more aggressively than Obama on the Europeans shouldering more in their own defense and in order to secure the international order.
This includes making it clear to Europeans that Biden may be the last president to have a Cold War-trained, nostalgic relationship with Europe.
And that the calls in the USA for less costly engagement in the world are only likely to get louder in the future, on the right as well as on the left.
So Biden is perhaps the last chance the Europeans have to find a new balance amicably that takes America's overstretching into account as well as Europe's need for an ongoing American military presence.
It won't be difficult for Biden to make a clear break with the Trump administration because Trump's foreign policy has been so erratic and unorthodox.
On the other hand, it will be more difficult for him to distance himself from Obama's foreign policy where it is necessary, which Biden himself helped shape for eight years.
And to use dynamics wisely, even if they were triggered by Trump's impetuous actions.