  The complexified gauging of the de Sitter group gives a unified theory for
the electroweak and gravitational interactions. The standard spectrum for the
electroweak gauge bosons is recovered with the correct mass assignments,
following a spontaneous breaking of the gauge symmetry imposed by the geometry.
There is no conventional Higgs sector. New physics is predicted with
gravity-induced electroweak processes (at the electroweak and at an
intermediate scale of about $10^{10}Gev$) as well as with novel-type of effects
(such as gravitational Aharonov-Bohm and violations of the Principle of
equivalence to 1 part in $10^{17}$). The new theoretical perspectives emerging
from this geometric unification are briefly discussed.
