text: What I wrote is correct. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 created the EEC which was a customs union of six countries. It was nothing like the European Union as we know it from Maastricht onwards.
  
  The history from 1957 is of repeated attempts to increase power in Brussels and reduce the power of individual nations; the salami-slicing I referred to which has infiltrated almost every aspect of peoples' lives in member countries through laws and regulations.
  
  Schengen, Maastricht and the Lisbon Treaty ( to replace the European Constitution rejected by the Dutch and French ) are just major steps towards the aim of an Europa where individual countries will be powerless. The British are leaving, more will follow in time as this "project" becomes increasingly insensitive to the people of Europe.