Europe's Economic Juggernaut

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Bush must face up to a rising power

Jeremy Rifkin on the possibility that President Bush may address the european Parliament in Brussels:

Let me suggest that if the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, were to convince the president to make such an address, the positive political fallout might be as significant as Henry Kissinger's bold move to have Richard Nixon visit China 33 years ago. Formally recognising the EU in this kind of very public way could help usher in a new era of cooperation between Europe and America and go a long way to heal the rifts that have developed since the end of the cold war.