Western Europe Union (WEU)

Last modified: 1997-10-17 by herman de wael
Keywords: europe | western european union | ueo | weu | star | european organization |
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by Zeljko Heimer

• Description of the flag
• Older flag of the WEU

See also:

• European Union

Description of the flag

The flag of UEO (Western European Union) is very like to European Union's; it has 9 golden stars (9 are the members: Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) over a blue field; it also has golden vertical writing UEO crossed with horizontal drawing WEU.

Giuseppe Bottasini

Older flag of the WEU

There is an older flag for the WEU, adopted in 1949:

"It has a dark blue field bearing five links forming an unbroken chain, in gold[1]. The field has a multi-coloured border: red (outside), gold, black, and white[2] [...] These colours were taken from the national flags of the member countries, namely, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland [sic] and Luxembourg" [car61, p313]

Notes:
[1] The links form a kind of pentagon, but with the "point" bottommost
[2] The relative proportions of the border are approx: Red 3, each of the others 1. The total width of the border is approx half that of the depth of the flag.

I don't know when this flag was replaced by the one mentioned above, but as the WEU was effectively moribund until the end of the Cold War, it would not surprise me if the members simply forgot there had ever been one. However, I doubt the old flag would have been revived if even if they had, as blue and gold, for good or for ill have become firmly established as the European colours.

Roy Stilling - 1996-05-06