A number of proposals for a new transatlantic trade and investment
initiative between the United States and the European Union (EU) have been
floated in recent months. Closer ties, some believe, would lead to a better
transatlantic relationship. The United States Government and the European
Commission are conducting independent studies to assess the feasibility of
establishing a free trade area or a "transatlantic economic space." Both sides
may agree, at a December 1995 summit, to intensify the U.S.-EU dialogue.
Proponents of a new transatlantic initiative argue that the United States and
the European Union run a risk of drifting apart in the absence of the unifying
threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Countering the view
that there is a "special relationship" between the United States and the
European Union are those, like MIT economics professor Lester Thurow, who
argue that in the post-Cold War world, the United States and European Union
are political and economic rivals engaged in a battle "to determine who owns the
twenty-first century.
