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European Council President Donald Tusk, panel right, speaks to EU leaders during an EU summit meeting at the Orazi and Curiazi Hall in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome, on March 25, 2017. Alessandra TarantinoAP

(ROME) European Union leaders marked the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty on Saturday as a turning point in their history in the knowledge that Britain will officially trigger divorce proceedings from the bloc next week.

Desperately trying to portray that sustained unity is the only way ahead in a globalized world, the no-show of British Prime Minister Theresa May was a symbol of the cathartic crisis the 27 other EU nations are going through.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called Brexit "a tragedy."

EU Council President Donald Tusk said that sustained unity for was the only way for the EU to survive.

"Europe as a political entity will either be united, or will not be at all," he told EU leaders at a solemn session in precisely the same ornate hall on the ancient Capitoline Hill where the Treaty of Rome founding the EU was signed on March 25, 1957.

"Only a united Europe can be a sovereign Europe in relation to the rest of the world," Tusk said. "Only a sovereign Europe guarantees independence for its nations, guarantees freedom for its citizens. "

In a series of speeches, EU leaders also acknowledged how the bloc had strayed into a complicated structure that had slowly lost touch with its citizens, compounded by the severe financial crisis that struck several member nations over the past decade.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who was hosting the summit, said that over the past dozen years the EU's development had stalled.

"Unfortunately, we stopped" he said, and "it triggered a crisis of rejection."

At the same time though, the summit in sun-splashed Rome, where new civilizations were built on old ruins time and again, there also was a message of optimism.

"Yes, we have problems, yes there are difficulties, yes there will be crisis in the future, but we stand together and we move forward," Gentiloni said. "We have the strength to start out again."

At the end of the session, all 27 leaders signed a new Rome Declaration saying that "European unity is a bold, far-sighted endeavor."

"We have united for the better. Europe is our common future," the declaration said.

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The European Union Just Turned 60. Now What? - TIME