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# Early proposals for a European flag

##

Last modified: 2026-08-29 by olivier touzeau
Keywords: proposal | europe |
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- Central European Union (1920)
- Presentation of the proposals in the colour plate Un drapeau pour l'Europe (1950)
  - Proposals
- Other pre-1955 proposals listed in the book Rejected: Designs for the European Flag
  - Proposals by Walther Timm
  - Proposals by Wolfram Neue
  - Proposals by unidentified author

See also:

- Rejected flag proposals for the Council of Europe
- 1985 proposals for a European Community flag
- European Union

## Central European Union (1920)

Image located by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 21 November 2022

Apparently someone saw this as a way to save Austria. But the specific way is quite extraordinary. Apart from the suggested two-sided flag [top is obverse, bottom is reverse], he also suggests 24 canton flags, of which 4 are depicted. I have yet to determine the system in them, that would tell the other 20.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 21 November 2022

## Presentation of the proposals

The colour plate Un drapeau pour l'Europe (A flag for Europe) was published by P.M.G. Lévy and P. Martin in Saisons d'Alsace, 1950, No.3.
The plate shows the flags of two private European movements that existed in 1950, the European Movement and the Paneuropa Union, and another 12 proposals of Europen Union flag. No detail is given either on the origin or meaning of the proposals.
[Carole Lager. Le drapeau européen, histoire et symbolisme (The European flag, history and symbolism) [lag99].In Fahnen, Flags, Drapeaux (Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Vexillology, Zurich, 23-27 August 1993 [icv93])]

Ivan Sache, 6 January 2000

### Proposals

Proposal #1 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #1 is a plain green flag.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #2 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #2 is horizontally divided blue-green-yellow-black with a triangle horizontally divided into two equal white-red parts, placed along the hoist.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #3 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #3 is a blue flag charged in the center with a white triangle bordered in black and white.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #4 - Image by António Martins, 21 July 2017

Proposal #4 is quartered red-blue-green-yellow by a thick white cross.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #5 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #5 is horizontally divided blue-white, 13 stripes, with a red, square canton (height, seven stripes) charged with three columns of five white stars each.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #6 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #6 is a white flag charged with a green letter "E" in the center.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

This flag has actually [centered on a white field] the "Former Flag of the European Movement".

Esteban Rivera & Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 29 May 2025

I think the green "E" flag had not gone out of style in 1970. As far as I remember, in the 1980s, this flag was often seen as the flag of Europe (the continent) without any political meaning. Unfortunately, I don't have any source to back this up

Elias Granqvist, 2 June 2025

Proposal #7 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #7 is horizontally divided blue-white-red with "EUROPE" written in black thick letters in the white stripe.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #8 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #8 is a blue flag charged with a white diamond and crossed by a white (through the blue field) and red (through the diamond) stripe rynning from the flag' upper left to lower right corner.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #9 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #9 is white with a red cross bordered in yellow; a red square bordered in yellow is placed in the center of the cross and charged with a white shield and a red bend. The shield shows the historical coat of arms of Strasbourg.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #10 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #10 is blue with a thin white cross and a green triangle bordered in black placed in the middle of the cross. THe fly is indented so tthat the flag is shaped like letter "E".

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #11 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #11 is quartered per saltire white-red-white-blue with two smaller green triangles placed inside the white triangles and the white letters E and U placed in the red and blue triangle, respectively.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #12 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

Proposal #12 is quartered per saltire white-red-white-blue with a green star placed in each white triangle. The star placed in the left triangle is tilted to the upper left corner whereas the other star points upwards.

Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005

## Other pre-1955 proposals listed in the book Rejected: Designs for the European Flag

Many early proposals for an European flag are depicted in the book Rejected: Designs for the European Flag [ljv20] & [ljv21].
Sample pages from [ljv21]: cover, pp. 26-27, pp. 32-33, pp. 48-49, pp. 56-57, pp. 96-97, see the publisher's website.

While the shown flag designs are interesting by themselves, the curation given to them seems, based on the blurb only, lacking — at least vexillologically so, and the unrelated preface Marie Rotkopf feels mismatched in tone and content. The publisher’s blurb refers to «150 other submitted designs», but it’s unclear wether that’s the number of flag proposals shown in the book (which according to the publisher has 130 p., shown 1 to 3 flags on each in the known samples) or of a vaster corpus of pre-1955 proposals sent to the Council of Europe up to 1955 «from all over the world» but most «were drafted by men from West Germany and France».
The choice for the cover image was also, I conjecture, marred lack of vexillological acumen: It shows the actual 1905-1950 flag of Malaysia and its predeceessors. By then this flag had freshly become a historical item but was surely known by anyone current on international affairs. I am sure that it being put forward as a possible flag for united Europe was some form of unsubtle trolling, likely streped in the casual racism of the time… Of course this historical Malaysian flag is in 2020 known mostly by Malaysians themselves, Malay history buffs, and vexillologists — but not by author Jonas von Lenthe, who seemingly picked up this design among the 150 as suitable example, which is not.

Two reviews were published in vexillological periodicals, respectively [scf21a] (Laura Scofield: _Vexillum_ *15*: 28-29) and [vxc21b] (anonymous: _Vexil·la Catalana_ *11*: 40-41).

António Martins-Tuválkin, 23 July 2025

### Proposals by Wolfram Neue

Proposals by Wolfram Neue - Images by António Martins-Tuválkin, 23 July 2025

These two designs depicted in the book Rejected: Designs for the European Flag [ljv21] pp. 32-33 are dated of 1951 and credited to Wolfram Neue, of Bad Elms, West Germany, whose accompaning text (or at least the fragment quoted here) gives no indication about the flag designs themselves. There are evident common traits (underlined by the the chapter heading in [ljv21] — “Colours and Fields”), and they might have been meant as excluding alternatives to each other, or as complementary — f.i., one being a flag and the other an ensign (i.e., its equivalent afloat).

- (left) - A square flag with a cross symmetric blue design throughout, drawn crosswords puzzle style in a 7×7 checkerboard, with alternating squares on the outer perimeter (white corners) and all blue squares in the next inner frame, leaving a 3×3 area in the center. The whole looks like a very stylized castle, akin to a cartographic icon / pictogram.
- (right) - A square flag with a cross symmetric red on yellow design throughout, drawn crosswords puzzle style in a 7×7 checkerboard, with outer perimeter in red except for yellow corner squares and the
  next inwards layer in alternating red and yellow squares (red corners) and on the central 3×3 yellow area a slightly smaller (about 20/23rds) red disc.

António Martins-Tuválkin, 23 July 2025

### Proposals by Walther Timm

Proposals by Walther Timm - Images by António Martins-Tuválkin, 24 July 2025

These two designs depicted in the book Rejected: Designs for the European Flag [ljv21] pp. 26-27 are credited to Walther Timm, from Bad Nauheim in West Germany. Again, these seem to be variants of each other and the text is not clear how they were meant to be coordinated. This time the text has significant content though, referencing the «current, provisional flag», meaning the European Movement flag, but as «a white E on a green background», which is the opposite of the known design.

These two proposals take thence the color green as their «defining feature» (and in my opinion neither is in anyway a better design than the "E" flag, quite the opposite). These two images seem to be drawn on paper, with thin inkpen (or pencil) holding lines and the green areas coasely filled in crayon; the common ratio is about 21:31.

- (left) - green rectangular flag with green rectangle centered on it, the resulting ersatz bordure being thicker in its vertical segments; the smaller rectangle shares the same diagonals as the whole flag.
- (right) - a similar design, with an added smaller green rectangle on the center, its diagonals the same as those of the whole flag and of the larger rectangle. (The original has is visibly assymmetric, corrected in our image.)

António Martins-Tuválkin, 24 July 2025

### Proposals by unidentified author

Proposal by unidentified author - Image by António Martins-Tuválkin, 27 June 2026

According to the publisher’s blurb of Rejected: Designs for the European Flag [ljv21], the proposals sent to the Council of Europe up to 1955 came «from all over the world» but most «were drafted by men from West Germany and France».

Given the somewhat scarce specimens of this book’s contents shown online, I would venture that the «men» mentioned in this quote are rather mostly *boys*, and of tender age, too, as witnessed by the tools and materials used for many of these drafts — crayon on school notebook page (this was the 1950s: not yet decals time, but any adult would have their proposals redrawn in ruling pen and India ink), and as witnessed also by the naive style of many proposals.

Such as this example, from p.49, captioned merely «unidentified» and uncommented and undescribed, bundled with others in a chapter named “E / EU / EUROPE / EUROPA”.
This design shows, on a relatively squarish rectangle canvas, basicly three areas arranged horizontally: At the middle top, on a rectangular area filled in red, the word "Europa" in serifless naive-style capitals painted in what seems to be feltpen darkblue on red crayon background, and radiating from behind it, Arizona-style, 14 stripes in various colors in a partly symmetric pattern; clockwise from the middle hoist: red, blue, yellow, green, and red, ending at the hoist edge, then murk (overpainted green and blue?), green, yellow (or amber?), dark green (different feltpen or overpainted?), green, blue, green, and yellow, ending at the top edge, and then red, green, yellow, murk (as before), and red, ending at the fly edge, from corner to middle.

Across the middle of the flag, the larger area is composed of a mosaic of 27 national flags, arrayed in two rows, each taking up a quadrangular space, vertically oblong but filled with a regular/horizontal depiction of a European national flag, necessarily distorted and also very crudely and naively rendered. These are, from fly to hoist, top then bottom: Belgium, Denmark, the United Kingdom (simplified as red cross and saltire on blue), France, Greece (with small canton taking up only 3 stripes), Iceland, Luxemburg, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and Ireland, above; and below: Finland, Sweden, Austria (with coat of arms), Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Romania (with coat of arms), Poland, Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Belarus, East Germany, Bulgaria, Switzerland, and (West) Germany. (In this line up some conspicuously missing Soviet Russia, and perhaps also the
three Soviet transcaucasian republics, as also the micro-states Monaco, Andorra, Liechtenstein, and the Vatican. Malta and Cyprus might had been still seen as British colonies.)

This area of the flag is roughly chevron-shaped, taking up the lower corners on both fly and hoist; the remaining area, at the center bottom, is filled with a multicolor pattern of scattered lozenges of varying sizes (perhaps suggesting other, unspecified flags?).

António Martins-Tuválkin, 27 June 2026