Flag of the Western European Union
Encyclopedia
The flag of the Western European Union
Western European Union
The Western European Union was an international organisation tasked with implementing the Modified Treaty of Brussels , an amended version of the original 1948 Treaty of Brussels...

(WEU) was dark blue with a semicircle of ten yellow five pointed stars, broken at the top, with the organisation's initials in the centre. Although it is the flag of a military organisation, it has rarely been flown in military situations.

Design

The flag is dark blue with a semicircle of ten yellow five pointed stars, broken at the top, with the white letters WEU horizontally across the centre and UEO vertically across the centre sharing the letter E with the former set of initials. UEO is the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 abbreviations for Western European Union. The flag's blue colour with yellow stars is taken from the flag of the Council of Europe and European Union, however the number of stars is ten due to the WEU membership being of that number.

Use

The flag was rarely used, with the WEU being largely dormant before it was succeeded by the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

's (EU) military activities
European Security and Defence Policy
The Common Security and Defence Policy , formerly known as the European Security and Defence Policy , is a major element of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union and is the domain of EU policy covering defence and military aspects...

. It was once flown on board an operational United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 warship, the USS John Rodgers
USS John Rodgers (DD-983)
USS John Rodgers , a Spruance-class destroyer, was the sixth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the three generations of the Rodgers family who served in the Navy....

, when it was used as the flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...

 of an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 general
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

 (with a WEU crew) commanding WEU relief operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

. There are variants for its bodies, such as its assembly, used on formal occasions. The WEU treaty is now terminated, with WEU activities wound up by June 2011, so no further use of the flag is foreseeable.

Previous designs

The current flag was in use only since 1993. Prior to that there was a similar design but with only nine stars (before Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 became a member) and the stars towards the base of the flag were progressively larger than those at the fringe. This design replaced an older version used since the WEU was founded, which was still dark blue but instead of stars, had five links forming an unbroken chain in the shape of an upside-down pentagon. There was a multicoloured border (red on the outside, gold, black and white) taken from the WEU member states' flags.

See also

  • Flag of Europe
  • Flag of NATO
  • Flag of the European Coal and Steel Community
    Flag of the European Coal and Steel Community
    The flag of the European Coal and Steel Community was a horizontal bicolour flag defaced with between six and seven stars which represented the European Coal and Steel Community between 1958 until 2002 when the Community was merged into the European Union...

  • Federalist flag
    Federalist flag
    The federalist flag, also known as the European Movement flag or the green "E" flag, is a flag commonly used by groups or individuals promoting European federalism, consisting of a large green "E" upon a white background...


External links

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