In October 2003, the last in a series of IGCs (Inter-Governmental Conference) began in Rome between the representatives of all the member states of the European Union, to discuss the most ambitious and challenging proposals ever to confront Europe's national leaders.
The second and final Treaty of Rome, if agreed and ratified, would for the first time in Europe's history abolish the independent nation status of each country for absorption into a new embryo state - the European Union, or United States of Europe, as it may be called.
Each country would be bound into a federal union having a single centralised government in Brussels, under a pan- European Constitution. This is indeed a unique and unprecedented development. The final signing, delayed due to the failure of the December 2003 summit in Brussels, is now expected to be sometime this summer.
