Assizes
A joint meeting between the European Parliament and the national parliaments, held in Rome in 1990 to prepare the Treaty changes made at Maastricht. After the rejection of the EU Constitution in 2005, several meetings were held between the European Parliament and the national Parliaments.
The proposal for the EU Constitution was prepared by the Convention on the future of Europe, which also included MEPs and delegations from national parliaments. It was then submitted to an intergovernmental conference which opened on 4 October 2003. The text was adopted at the European Council meeting in Brussels on 18 June 2004.
The Convention method has been proposed as a standard for future treaty changes and is now included in the Lisbon Treaty, see Article 48 TEU.