The Treaty of Nice was signed by European leaders on 26 February 2001 and came into force on 1 February 2003. It amended the Maastricht Treaty (or the Treaty on European Union) and the Treaty of Rome (or the Treaty establishing the European Community). The Treaty of Nice reformed the institutional structure of the European Union to withstand eastward expansion, a task which was originally intended to have been done by the Amsterdam Treaty, but failed to be addressed at the time.

The entrance into force of the treaty was in doubt for a time, after its initial rejection by Irish voters in a referendum in June 2001. This referendum result was reversed in a subsequent referendum held a little over a year later.

The Nice Treaty was attacked by many people as a flawed compromise. Germany had demanded that its greater population be reflected in a higher vote weighting in the Council; this was opposed by France, who insisted that the symbolic parity between France and Germany be maintained. One proposal made by many,^[who?] which would have greatly simplified the current system, was to introduce a double majority of both member states and population, to replace the current Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) system. This was also rejected by France for similar reasons. A compromise was reached, which provided for a double majority of Member States and votes cast, and in which a Member State could optionally request verification that the countries voting in favour represented a sufficient proportion of the Union's population.

Coordinates: 43°42′12″N 7°15′59″E / 43.7034°N 7.2663°E / 43.7034; 7.2663

Nice ( /ˈniːs/, French pronunciation: [nis]; Niçard Occitan: Niça [classical norm] or Nissa [nonstandard], Italian: Nizza or Nizza Marittima, Greek: Νίκαια, Latin: Nicaea) is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of 71.92 km² (28 sq mi). The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of about 1 million on an area of 721 km² (278 sq mi). Located on the south east coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, Nice is the second-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast after Marseille.

The city is called Nice la Belle (Nissa La Bella in Niçard), which means Nice the Beautiful, which is also the title of the unofficial anthem of Nice, written by Menica Rondelly in 1912. Nice is the capital of the Alpes Maritimes département and the second biggest city of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region after Marseille.

Andrew Duff OBE (born 25 December 1950 in Birkenhead, Cheshire) is a Liberal Democrat politician, president of the Union of European Federalists, and a Member of the European Parliament for the East of England region of the UK.

He initially stood in the 1984 European Parliament election, finishing third with 22.5% of the vote. In the 1989 election he polled 8% of the vote, coming fourth, then in the 1994 election he came third with 20%. The constituencies were largely representing Cambridgeshire and at times parts of Bedfordshire. With the electoral change to regional party-list proportional representation, he was first elected in the 1999 European Parliament election when the Liberal Democrats won 12% of the regional vote, and retained his seat in the 2004 and 2009 elections when they won 14% of the regional vote.

Since October 2008 Andrew Duff is president of the Union of European Federalists (UEF). On 15 September 2010 Duff together with UEF initiated the Spinelli Group, which was founded to reinvigorate the strive for federalisation of the European Union (EU). Other prominent supporters are: Jacques Delors, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Guy Verhofstadt, Elmar Brok.