Flag of Europe

The flag of Europe or European flag consists of twelve golden stars forming a circle on a blue field. It was designed and adopted in 1955 by the Council of Europe as a symbol for the whole of Europe.
Since 1985, the flag has also been a symbol of the European Union, whose 27 member states are all also CoE members, although in that year the EU had not yet assumed its present name or constitutional form. Adoption by the EU, or EC as it then was, reflected a long-standing CoE desire to see the flag used by other European organisations. Official EU use widened greatly in the 1990s. Nevertheless, the flag has to date received no status in any of the EU's treaties. Its adoption as an official symbol was planned as part of the 2004 Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe but this failed to be ratified. Mention of the flag was removed in 2007 from the text of the Treaty of Lisbon, which was ratified. On the other hand, 16 EU members that year, plus France in 2017, have officially affirmed their attachment to the flag as an EU symbol.
The flag is used by other European entities, such as unified golf teams under the rubric Team Europe.

Blazon

In 1955, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe unanimously chose the blazon for the European flag and emblem of '12 gold stars not touching, on an azure blue background. The stars represent perfection, completeness and the months of the year.

Symbolism

The flag used is the Flag of Europe, which consists of a circle of twelve golden stars on a blue background. Originally designed in 1955 for the Council of Europe, the flag was adopted by the European Communities, the predecessors of the present European Union, in 1986. The Council of Europe gave the flag a symbolic description in the following terms, though the official symbolic description adopted by the EU omits the reference to the "Western world":
Other symbolic interpretations have been offered based on the account of its design by Paul M. Levy. The five-pointed star is used on many national flags and represents aspiration and education. Their golden colour is that of the sun, which is said to symbolise glory and enlightenment.
Their arrangement in a circle represents the constellation of Corona Borealis and can be seen as a crown and the stability of government. The blue background resembles the sky and symbolises truth and the intellect. It is also the colour traditionally used to represent the Virgin Mary. In many paintings of the Virgin Mary as Stella Maris she is crowned with a circle of twelve stars.

Marian interpretation

In 1987, following the adoption of the flag by the EC, Arsène Heitz, one of the designers who had submitted proposals for the flag's design, suggested a religious inspiration for it. He stated that the circle of stars was based on the iconographic tradition of showing the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Woman of the Apocalypse, wearing a "crown of twelve stars".
Heitz also made a connection to the date of the flag's adoption, 8 December 1955, coinciding with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Paul M. G. Lévy, then Director of Information at the Council of Europe responsible for designing the flag, in a 1989 statement maintained that he had not been aware of any religious connotations.
In an interview given 26 February 1998, Lévy denied not only awareness of the Marian connection, but also denied that the final design of a circle of twelve stars was Heitz's. To the question "Who really designed the flag?" Lévy replied:

I did, and I calculated the proportions to be used for the geometric design. Arsène Heitz, who was an employee in the mail service, put in all sorts of proposals, including the 15-star design. But he submitted too many designs. He wanted to do the European currencies with 15 stars in the corner. He wanted to do national flags incorporating the Council of Europe flag.

Carlo Curti Gialdino has reconstructed the design process to the effect that Heitz's proposal contained varying numbers of stars, from which the version with twelve stars was chosen by the Committee of Ministers meeting at Deputy level in January 1955 as one out of two remaining candidate designs.
Lévy's 1998 interview apparently gave rise to a new variant of the Marian anecdote. An article published in Die Welt in August 1998 alleged that it was Lévy himself who was inspired to introduce a Marian element as he walked past a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
An article posted in La Raison in February 2000 further connected the donation of a stained glass window for Strasbourg Cathedral by the Council of Europe on 21 October 1956. This window, a work by Parisian master Max Ingrand, shows a blessing Madonna underneath a circle of 12 stars on dark blue ground. The overall design of the Madonna is inspired by the banner of the cathedral's Congrégation Mariale des Hommes, and the twelve stars are found on the statue venerated by this congregation inside the cathedral. The Regional Office for Cultural Affairs describe this stained glass window called "Le vitrail de l'Europe de Max Ingrand".

Specifications

According to graphical specifications published online by the Council of Europe in 2004, the flag is rectangular with 2:3 proportions: its fly is one and a half times the length of its hoist. Twelve yellow stars are centred in a circle upon a blue background. All the stars are upright, have five points and are spaced equally, like the hour positions on the face of a clock. The diameter of each star is equal to one-ninth of the height of the hoist.
The colours are regulated in the 1996 guide by the EC, and equivalently in the 2004 guide by the Council of Europe. The base colour of the flag is defined as Pantone "Reflex Blue", while the golden stars are portrayed in Pantone "Yellow":

	Azure	Gold
Pantone	Reflex Blue	Yellow
RGB	`#003399`	`#FFCC00`
CMYK	100.80.0.0	0.21.100.0

The 2013 logo of the Council of Europe has the colours:

	Azure	Gold
Pantone	PMS 287	PMS 116
RGB	`#1E448A`	`#FDCB0B`
CMYK	100.67.0.40	0.20.100.0

Adoption and usage

The twelve-star "flag of Europe" was designed in 1950 and officially adopted by the Council of Europe in 1955. The same flag was adopted by the European Parliament in 1983. The European Council adopted it as an "emblem" for the European Communities in 1985. Its status in the European Communities was inherited by the European Union upon its formation in 1993. The proposal to adopt it as official flag of the European Union failed with the ratification of the European Constitution in 2005, and mention of all emblems suggesting statehood was removed from the Treaty of Lisbon of 2007, although sixteen member states signed a declaration supporting the continued use of the flag. In 2007, the European Parliament officially adopted the flag for its own use.

1950–present: Council of Europe

The Council of Europe in 1950 appointed a committee to study the question of adopting a symbol.
Numerous proposals were looked into.
Among the unsuccessful proposals was the flag of Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi's International Paneuropean Union, which he had himself recently adopted for the European Parliamentary Union.
The design was a blue field with a red cross inside an orange circle at the centre.
Kalergi was very committed to defending the cross as "the great symbol of Europe's moral unity", the Red Cross in particular being "recognized by the whole world, by Christian and non-Christian nations as a symbol of international charity and of the brotherhood of man", but the proposal was rejected by Turkey on grounds of its religious associations in spite of Kalergi's suggestion of adding a crescent alongside the cross to overcome the Muslim objections.
Other proposals included the flag was the European Movement, which had a large green E on a white background,
a design was based on the Olympic rings, eight golden rings on a blue background, rejected due to the rings' similarity with "dial", "chain" and "zeros", or a large yellow star on a blue background, rejected due to its equality with the flag of the Belgian Congo.
The Consultative Assembly narrowed their choice to two designs. One was by Salvador de Madariaga, the founder of the College of Europe, who suggested a constellation of stars on a blue background. He had circulated his flag round many European capitals and the concept had found favour.
The second was a variant by Arsène Heitz, who worked for the council's postal service and had submitted dozens of designs, one of which was accepted by the Assembly. The design was similar to Salvador de Madariaga's, but rather than a constellation, the stars were arranged in a circle. Arsène Heitz was one of several people who proposed a circle of gold stars on a blue background. None of his proposals perfectly match the design that was adopted. Paul Levy claims that he was the one who designed the template for the flag, not Arsène Heitz.
In 1987, Heitz would claim that his inspiration had been the crown of twelve stars of the Woman of the Apocalypse, often found in Marian iconography.
On 25 September 1953, the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe recommended that a blue flag with fifteen gold stars be adopted as an emblem for the organisation, the number fifteen reflecting the number of states of the Council of Europe. West Germany objected to the fifteen-star design, as one of the members was Saar Protectorate, and to have its own star would imply sovereignty for the region. The Committee of Ministers agreed with the Assembly that the flag should be a circle of stars, but opted for a fixed number of twelve stars, "representing perfection and entirety". The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 25 October 1955 agreed to this. Paul M. G. Lévy drew up the exact design of the new flag. Officially adopted on 8 December 1955, the flag was unveiled at the Château de la Muette in Paris on 13 December 1955.
For the flag of the Council of Europe, many stylistic proposals were made in regards to colours and symbolism. These first proposals were made 19 January 1950 by Paul Levy in a letter to the Secretary-General. He proposed that the flag should contain a cross for several reasons. Firstly, the cross symbolizes roads crossing, and also represents the east, the west, the north, and the south with its arms. Furthermore, the cross appears in most of the European Council members' flags, and it is the oldest and most noble symbol in Europe. Moreover, the cross depicted Christianity. As far as the colours are concerned, he proposed them to be white and green, colours of the European Movement, which was of great significance since 1947. Green also depicted hope, and the green cross over a white background was a design that had not been used yet. Finally, Levy proposed that the arms of Strasbourg was an important element to be added as it represented where the council would be, and being located in the heart of the cross meant that the council was the point where the European roads met.
Shortly after this design considerations by Paul Levy, on 27 July 1950, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, president of the Pan-European movement wrote a memorandum which contained some rules that a flag for such union should follow. The rules he stated where:

It should be a symbol of our common civilisation.
It should present a European emblem.
It should not provoke any national rivalry.
It should represent tradition.
It should be beautiful and dignified.

After these statements, Coudenhove-Kalergi proposed that the Pan-European movement flag would be the perfect one to fit these criteria
15 July 1951, the consultative assembly put forward a final memorandum on the European flag. The symbols proposed where the following

A cross: Symbol of Christianity, Europe's crossroads, reminiscent of the crusades, and present in half of the member state's flags.
An "E": Used by the European Movement.
A white star in a circle: Symbol used in 1944–45 by the armies of liberation.
Multiple stars: Each star could represent a member. They could be green on a white background, white stars on a red background, or silver stars for associate members, and golden stars for full members.
Strasbourg's Coat of Arms: To symbolize the official seat of the Council of Europe.
A sun: It would represent dawning hope.
A triangle: It would represent culture.

Furthermore, several colours were also proposed:

Multi-coloured: It was proposed that the flag could contain all the colours the flags of the member states had.
Green and White: These were the colours of the European Movement.
Blue: Symbol of peace and neutrality, as other colours were already used for other movements such as black for mourning, red for bolshevism, or green for Islam.

In the end, the flag of Europe was chosen to have 12 five-pointed golden stars in a circle over a blue background, probably inspired by the Pan-European flag and other designs such as Salvador de Madariaga's and Arsène Heitz's proposals.

Flag	Date	Designer	Description	Sources
	1920	Unknown	Obverse and reverse of the European flag proposed in an anonymous pan-European brochure from 1920.
	1930	Unknown	Anonymous sketch flag for the United States of Europe
	23 August 1949	Camille Manné	Flag proposal by Camille Manné, a Strasbourg Citizen, which incorporated all the colours of the European flags, made by doing a statistical analysis of the colours of the European flags. Its design is in the form of four horizontal stripes, blue, green, yellow and black, and a chevron horizontally divided in red and white adjacent to the hoist. The chevron also has the colours of Strasbourg.
	5 June 1950	Coudenhove-Kalergi	The count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi proposed to Jacques-Camille Paris, Secretary General of the European Council, about using the Paneuropean movement flag.
	15 July 1951	Martin-Levy	One of the curators of the Strasbourg Museum and member of the Secretariat-General, Martin-Levy, proposed a white ground with a green cross bearing in the centre the coat-of-arms of the Town of Strasbourg. The cross is shifted slightly towards the hoist in the manner of Scandinavian flags.
	15 July 1951	Coudenhove-Kalergi	The Count Coudenhove-Kalergi proposed a white flag bearing a red symmetrical cross, also known as the flag of St. George.
	15 July 1951	Prince de Schwarzenberg	The Prince de Schwarzenberg proposed that the "first European symbol", the labarum of Constantine, should be adopted. A red flag with a yellow symmetrical cross.
	15 July 1951	Lucien Philippe	Fifteen five-pointed green stars in three rows on a white ground.
	15 July 1951	Louis Wirion	Louis Wirion, Luxembourg expert in heraldry, proposed a design based on the Martin-Levy proposal, reversing the colours and doing away with the Strasbourg coat of arms. However he agreed that the white ground should be left with a green cross provided the Strasbourg coat of arms at the centre was only used for the pennants of Council personages and flags flown on Council buildings, and omitted in all other cases.
	15 July 1951	Sommier of Neuilly	Sommier proposed a design based in the European Movement flag, with a green "E" detached from the hoist over a white ground.
	15 July 1951	Alwin Mondon.	Alwin Mondon, a cartographer of Bad Godesberg, proposed a white triangle, symbol of culture, on various fields.
	15 July 1951	Alwin Mondon.	Another Mondon project.
	15 July 1951	Alwin Mondon.	Another Mondon project using fleur-de-lis.
	15 July 1951	Muller of Wiesbaden	Muller of Wiesbaden proposed a red flag bearing the word "Europa" in gold lettering, with a golden sun and a white hand making the sign of the oath.
	15 July 1951	Harmignies	Harmignies suggested creating a new heraldic device: a Cross of Europe. This cross would consist of four "E"s backed on to a square. He proposed a flag consisting of a green Cross of Europe on a white ground.
	15 July 1951	Poucher	Poucher proposed a federal flag which was virtually the reverse of the flag of the United States of America, with blue bands and a red quarter in one corner.
	15 July 1951	H.C.?	H.C. proposed a horizontally-divided blue-red flag, the upper blue and the lower red. This is the international code sign of the letter "E". Furthermore, these two colours also correspond to those generally adopted by the right and left wing parties respectively.
	26 September 1951	Coudenhove-Kalergi	A slight variation of the Paneuropean movement flag that the count Cudenhove-Kalergi proposed but later verbally expressed his intention of withdrawing his proposal.
	26 September 1951	J. E. Dylan	In January 1951 J.E.Dylan proposed on a letter this and other flag with the Star of Liberation surrounded by stars. He also proposed these two designs to have a blue background. The council put forward this proposal, which had a green flag with a white and red Star of Liberation, and the Strasbourg coat of arms on the upper left-hand corner. The star in a circle was in 1944-5 the insignia of the armies of Liberation.
	26 September 1951	Unknown	A similar design to Louis Wirion's flag proposal, but the cross is symmetrical. This design was proposed by those who believed that a green cross on a white background would be too easily soiled.
	26 September 1951	Unknown	A white Cross of St. Andrew over a green ground. The cross represents one of the oldest and most popular European emblems which has appeared in the case of the Cross of Burgundy, emblem of the "Grand Duchy of the West".
	15 October 1951	Arsène Heitz	Arsène Heitz proposed a green flag, colour of Charlemagne's standard which the Pope Leo III gave to him at his coronation, and a red cross fimbriated in yellow. Red depicts the bloodshed in fratricidal struggles and yellow being the colour of the Pope and Christianity.
	15 October 1951	Arsène Heitz	Slight variation of the Cross of St.George, with the heart of the cross located closer to the hoist, in the style of the Nordic Cross. Probably inspired or derived from Count Coudenhove-Kalergi's proposal, so that it wasn't a replica of England's flag.
	1 December 1951	Salvador de Madariaga	Salvador de Madariaga chose to depict each capital of the member states at that time with a star. The bigger star depicted Strasbourg. Stars were chosen as they depicted the country, but without the need of frontiers. Furthermore, they were eight-pointed depicting the eight chief directions of the compass.
	5 January 1952	Arsène Heitz	A green standard, colour of Charlemagne's standard, with a red cross fimbriated with gold. Each member state, when using the flag, could insert their coat of arms in the heart of the cross.
	12 May 1952	Paul Levy	Turkey objected to the Paneuropean proposal due to the fact that there was Christian representation with the red cross, but no Islamic representation. Therefore, Paul Levy proposed adding a small crescent at one of the upper corners of the sun in the flag.
	15 November 1952	Arsène Heitz	Set of European flags which start to resemble more the actual flag of the EU. They show circles of yellow five-pointed stars on a blue field. Heitz, as in his previous January proposal, he suggested that each member state could add its own flag to the design.
	15 November 1952	Arsène Heitz	Set of European flags which start to resemble more the actual flag of the EU. They show circles of yellow five-pointed stars on a blue field. Heitz, as in his previous January proposal, he suggested that each member state could add its own flag to the design.
	15 November 1952	Arsène Heitz	Set of European flags which start to resemble more the actual flag of the EU. They show circles of yellow five-pointed stars on a blue field. Heitz, as in his previous January proposal, he suggested that each member state could add its own flag to the design.
	25 September 1953	Members of the Council of Europe	Fifteen golden five-pointed stars in a circle representing union, over a blue background.
	12 November 1954	Arsène Heitz	Blue flag with a yellow eight-pointed star in a red circle. The design is probably inspired in the Paneuropean flag, but instead of having a yellow cross, the shape of a compass rose is added to represent all of Europe.
	25 December 1954	Arsène Heitz	Blue flag with a red and white eight-pointed compass rose in the middle, probably chosen so that all member states felt represented.
	11 September 1955	Arsène Heitz	Blue flag with a star in the middle surrounded by twelve secondary stars. This is the most similar flag to the current one, with 12 stars instead of 15, and a star in the middle to probably represent Strasbourg or union.
	9 December 1955	Committee of European Ministers	Blue field with a five-pointed 12-star circle