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The logos can be opened with Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, CorelDraw or Adobe Photoshop. All the logos are also available in format EPS.
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.............................. European Union Flag
Logo and Trademark..............................
The Flag of Europe consists of a circle of twelve golden (yellow) stars on a blue background. It is most commonly associated with the European Union (EU), formerly the European Communities, which adopted the flag in the 1980s. However it was first adopted by the Council of Europe (CoE), which created it in 1955.
The EU and CoE are separate organisations; while the EU has 27 members, the CoE has 47 members and 5 observers comprising not only all 27 EU members but also nearly all European countries except Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Vatican City. When adopted by the CoE, it was to represent not just itself, but the whole of Europe. Since both the EU and the CoE represent European unity, the two organisations are using the same flag.
The flag is blue with a circle of 12 gold/yellow five-pointed stars orientated upwards (the number of stars is fixed). The Heraldic description given by the EU is: "On an azure field a circle of twelve golden mullets, their points not touching." The Council of Europe described the flag as: "Against the blue sky of the Western world, the stars represent the peoples of Europe in a circle, a symbol of unity. Their number shall be invariably set at twelve, the symbol of completeness and perfection ... just like the twelve signs of the zodiac represent the whole universe, the twelve gold stars stand for all peoples of Europe – including those who cannot as yet take part in building up Europe in unity and peace." Some claim that there was an early design of white stars on a light blue field, symbolising the dependence on the United Nations.
Although there have been numerous other flags developed by groups to represent Europe, the first major organisation to adopt one was the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which later merged into the European Communities. The ECSC was created in 1952 and the flag was unveiled in 1958 Expo in Brussels.
The flag was two stripes, blue at the top, black at the bottom with 6 stars, 3 on each stripe. Blue was for steel, black for coal and the six stars were the six member-states. When the ECSC treaty expired in 2002, the flag was lowered in Brussels for the final time and replaced with the European flag. The European Parliament also adopted its own flag. It followed the yellow and blue colour scheme however instead of 12 stars there were the letters EP and PE surrounded by wreath.
The current European flag was originally adopted by the Council of Europe on December 8, 1955, from one of many designs attributed to Arsène Heitz. On 25 October 1955 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) made the unanimous decision to adopt a circle of gold stars on a blue background as an emblem. On 8 December 1955 the Committee of Ministers adopted this as the European flag. Even though the flag is most used by the EU, the Council of Europe owns the intellectual property of the flag. This means that the Secretary General of the Council of Europe could, in theory, bar the European Union from using the European flag.[citation needed]
The Council of Europe from the beginning desired it to be used by other regional organisations seeking European integration. However the Council now uses a defaced version of the flag as its emblem: it is the existing design with a stylised "e" over the stars (covering one, reducing the number to 11) A derivative flag is also used by the Western European Union (WEU), a separate military alliance. Its flag is similar but has ten stars with the circle broken at the top. Inside were the letters WEU horizontally and UEO vertically, sharing the E in the centre.
The flag is also used in certain sports arrangements where a unified 'Team Europe' is represented. The features of the flag, or the flag in its entirety are often used as a parts of commercial brands or clearly reflected in the shaping of logos of Europe-wide organisations and companies.
The number of stars on the flag is fixed at 12 and is not related to the number of member states of the EU since it is originally the flag of the Council of Europe and does not have a relation with the 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 (it is not unlucky in Italy, although seventeen is), 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 because of the ubiquity of the number for groups in European cultures and traditions .
In 2002, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and his architecture firm OMA designed a new flag in response to Commission President Romano Prodi's request to find ways of rebranding the Union in a way that represents Europe's "diversity and unity". The proposed new design was dubbed the "barcode" as it displays the colours of every European flag (of the then 15 members) as vertical stripes. As well as the barcode comparison, it had been compared unfavourably to wallpaper, a TV test card and deckchair fabric. Unlike the current flag it would change to reflect the member states.
It was never officially adopted by the EU or any organisation however it was used as the logo of the Austrian EU Presidency in 2006. It had been updated with the colours of the 10 members who had joined since the proposal and was designed by Koolhaas's firm. Its described aim is "to portray Europe as the common effort of different nations, with each retaining its own unique cultural identity".
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