European flag

From Free net encyclopedia

The European flag consists of a circle of twelve golden stars on a blue background.

Although the flag is most commonly associated with the European Union (EU), it was initially used by the Council of Europe (COE), and intended to represent Europe as a whole as opposed to any particular organisation such as the EU or the COE.

The flag was originally adopted by the Council of Europe on December 8, 1955, from one of many designs attributed to Arsène Heitz. The Council of Europe from the beginning desired it to be used by other regional organisations seeking European integration.

The European Community (EC) adopted it on May 26, 1986. The European Union, which was established by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 to replace the EC and encompass its functions, also adopted the flag. Since then the use of the flag has been controlled jointly by the Council of Europe and the European Union.

The flag appears on the face of all Euro currency banknotes, and the stars on Euro coins.

The number of stars on the flag is fixed at 12 and is not related to the number of member states of EU. In 1953, the Council of Europe had 15 members; it was proposed that the future flag should have one star for each member, and would not change based on future members. West Germany objected to this as one of the members was the disputed area of Saarland, and to have its own star would imply sovereignty for the region. On this basis, France also objected to fourteen stars, as this would imply the absorption of Saarland into Germany. Myth has it that the Italian representative then objected that thirteen was an unlucky number, as well as the fact that early flags of the United States featured that number of stars. Twelve was eventually adopted as a number with no political connotations and as a symbol of perfection and completeness[1] because of the ubiquity of the number for groups in European cultures and traditions such as:

The number has led to a number of assertions that there is further meaning in the stars, for example its similarity to the twelve-star halo of the Virgin Mary seen in Roman Catholic art. Most non-partisan authorities on the subject disregard such theories as myth.[2] However, flag designer Arsène Heitz has acknowledged that the Book of Revelation helped to inspire him.[3]

1 Common mistakes
- 1.1 Examples of common mistakes
2 Proposals
3 See also
4 External links

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Common mistakes

This flag is, or the individual stars are, upside-down.

The stars are rotated incorrectly. All the stars should be rotated the same i.e. with two points at the bottom and one at the top.

The stars are in the wrong positions; they should be in the "O'Clock" positions.

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Examples of common mistakes

There are far too many stars on this regulation sticker

These stars have the same orientation WRT the center of the image, but they should all be oriented WRT the viewer (All be rotated in the same manner

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Proposals

Image:European Presidency Austria 2006.png Following the signing of the Treaty of Nice in May 2001, which made Brussels the official capital of Europe, the then President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi and the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt invited the designer Rem Koolhaas to discuss the necessities and requirements of a European capital.

During these talks and as an impetus for further discussion, Koolhaas and his think-tank OMA suggested the development of a visual language. This idea inspired a series of drawings and drafts, including the "Barcode". The barcode tries to unite the flags of all the EU member countries into a single, colourful symbol.

In the current European flag, there is a fixed number of stars. In the barcode however, new Member States of the EU can be added without space constraints. Originally, the barcode displayed 15 EU countries. In 2004, the symbol was adapted to include the ten new Member States.

Since the time of the first drafts of the barcode it has never been officially used by commercial or political institutions. During the Austrian EU Presidency 2006 it is officially used for the first time, but only as part of the logo of the presidency, not as a new EU flag. The logo has already been used for the EU information campaign which will also be continued during the Austrian EU Presidency.

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