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Paneuropa Union

Flag of the Paneuropa Union - Image by Željko Heimer & António Martins, 1 May 1996

Presentation of the Paneuropa Union
Flag of the Paneuropa Union
Variants of the flag of the Paneuropa Union
Former flag of the Paneuropa Union

Presentation of the Paneuropa Union

The Paneuropa, currently headed by Otto Habsburg, was founded in 1923 by Richard Nikolaus Count Coudenhove-Kalergi. It is credited with some influence over the creation of what is now the European Union. Paneuropa is, unsurprisingly, more active in Austria and the former Austro-Hungarian states. It is very anti-Communist and Christian Democratic in political orientation, with a strong Catholic influence. The famous 1989 "picnic" on the Austrian/Hungarian border was organized by Paneuropa.

Stuart A. Notholt & Dieter Linder, 12 July 1998

Flag of the Paneuropa Union

The flag of the Paneuropa Movement, as seen on the main square in Zagreb, in the house of Croatian Council of European Movement, an organization that is promoting the European idea, is similar to the flag of the European Union with a yellow disc with a red cross on it placed inside the ring of stars.

Željko Heimer, 1 May 1996

The cross is the symbol of Christendom and the sun symbolizes the European civilization enlightening the world. After the Second World War, the flag was used by the European Parliamentary Union.

Source: Carole Lager Le drapeau européen, histoire et symbolisme, pp. 126-129 [lag99], in Fahnen, Flags, Drapeaux, Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Vexillology, Zurich, 23-27 August 1993 [icv93]

Ivan Sache, 6 January 2000

Variants of the flag of the Paneuropa Movement

Variant of the flag of the Paneuropa Union - Image by Ivan Sache, 6 January 2000

Source: A colour plate originally published by P.M.G. Lévy and P. Martin, as Un drapeau pour l'Europe in Saisons d'Alsace, 1950, #3, showing proposals for the European flag, reproduced in Fahnen, Flags, Drapeaux (op. cit.).

Ivan Sache, 6 January 2000

A photography taken at a discussion about Islam and Europe in a Bavarian monastery shows two Paneuropa Union flags draped over a table. There are two differences between the flags on the photo and the version we have on this page. First, on the photographed flags the distance between the yellow disc and the stars is bigger. Second, the position of the stars on the photo is not upright as usually, but slightly turned left (from the viewer's perspective).

Martin Karner, 14 July 2004

Former flag of the Paneuropa Union

Former flag of the Paneuropa Union - Image by Dieter Linder & António Martins, 12 July 1998

The flag, in ratio 1:2, shows in the center of a light blue field a yellow disk with a narrow red cross throughout.

Source: Volker Junge, Eine Flagge für Europa, Kleeblatt 3/1987 [klb]

Dieter Linder, 12 July 1998

According to Crampton, the Paneuropa Movement carried a flag with a blue field bearing a yellow disc with a red cross in the middle before the start of Second World War. When the Council of Europe formed in 1948, it adopted this flag for its own organization without changes, but it changed to the current design in 1953 to accommodate its newest member, Turkey.

Steve Kramer & Roy Stilling, 1 May 1996

This flag consists of "the red cross of humanitarian compassion against the golden sun of enlightenment in a field azure - the blue sky as a symbol of untroubled peace".

Peter Diem, 11 June 2002