The flag of the European Coal and Steel Community was a horizontal bicolour flag defaced with stars which represented the

European Coal and Steel Community The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to regulate the coal and steel industries. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxemb ...

(ECSC) between 1958 (six years after the ECSC was founded) until 2002 when the Community was merged into the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

(EU). Prior to 1958 the ECSC did not have a flag, and no other flag has been used by a historical part of the

other than the

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 (CoE) as a symbol for the whole of Europe. Since 1985, the flag has also been ...

Design

The flag consisted of two horizontal stripes, blue on the top and black on the bottom. Black stood for coal while the blue stood for steel, the two resources the community managed. There were a number of gold, later white,

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

s equivalent to the number of states belonging to the community (until 1986, when the number was frozen at twelve). These stars were equally divided between each strip, aligned close to the centre border (if there were an odd number of stars, then the smaller number would be on the top stripe.

History

The flag was first unveiled at the 1958 Exposition in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, seven years after the establishment of the Community. At the Expo, its rivalling flag, the flag of Europe, was also on one of its first public displays. The number of stars began at six and increased with the membership of the Community until 1986 when it reached twelve. After this it was decided not to increase the number of stars to reflect the new members joining in the 1990s. This kept it inline with the

(used by its sister organisations) which displayed twelve stars representing perfection and unity. The Treaty of Paris setting up the ECSC expired on 23 July 2002 and the ECSC ceased to exist. On this day the ECSC flag outside the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

was lowered for the final time by

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Romano Prodi Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Pr ...

and replaced with the EU flag.The ECSC flag 1978
CVCE (Centre for European Studies) One original copy of the flag of the ECSC with 12 stars is exposed in the office of the President of the

European University Institute The European University Institute (EUI) is an international postgraduate and post-doctoral teaching and research institute and an independent body of the European Union with juridical personality, established by the member states to contr ...

in Florence, Prof. J. H.H. Weiler.

Evolution of designs

References

External links

Video of the lowering of the flag for the last time
– Virtual Centre for Knowledge on Europe
European Coal and Steel Community
–

Flags of the World This gallery of sovereign state flags shows the national or state flags of sovereign states that appear on the list of sovereign states. For other flags, please see flags of active autonomist and secessionist movements, flags of extinct states ...

entry «{{Flags of International Organization

European Coal And Steel Community The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a European organization created after World War II to regulate the coal and steel industries. It was formally established in 1951 by the Treaty of Paris, signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxemb ...

European Coal and Steel Community Symbols of the European Union

Design

History

Evolution of designs

See also

References

External links