The EU flag flown at the Olympics would be THEFT!

Should athletes from EU Member States carry the European Union flag? 

Let's be clear. There is no distinct EU flag. It is high time for Europe's leaders to be honest about its emblem, its flag. People rally around a flag where it has real and lasting meaning. 

The flag of twelve-stars on an azure field is the flag of the Council of Europe. It is Europe's senior institution. The EU uses the flag as a subsidiary of the Council of Europe. 

So it makes no sense for EU States to flourish the twelve-star flag, because it is primarily a symbol of the Council of Europe. It includes 47 States, not just the 27 of the EU. 

Besides the EU States, the Flag represents:

Norway, Iceland, Turkey, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Moldova, Albania, Andorra, Switzerland, Ukraine, North Macedonia, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Monaco, Serbia, Montenegro and the United Kingdom.

Should the flag be waived every time one of these States wins at the Olympics? 

The EU seems to be attempting to appropriate total use of the flag. It is an attempted act of pilfering, to use a polite term. It's a theft as much as using the logo of Coca Cola as the emblem of the European Commission. 

Slow motion steal

The Council of Europe owns the flag. It encapsulates honest government and European values. Decades later, it first offered use of the flag with conditions to the European Communities. At first only the European Parliament took up the generous invitation. Other Community institutions then wanted to use it.

The story is a bit like a neighbour borrowing the lawnmower and then after a period of time the neighbour says the lawnmower belongs to me. 

Put it another way. It is like the European Commission installing Coca Cola vending machines throughout the Berlaymont building. Then, when they became so prevalent, saying that the Commission owns the branding of the Coca Cola logo.  

The EU, with its flagrant democratic deficit, seems to think that the 12-star flag is its own. But the question of ownership is even more legally dubious. The flag was offered to the European Communities, not the present EU, which is a different animal. 

The European Council took over control and made the flag part of EU. But ironically, in the referendums on the Constitutional treaty that was rejected by France and the Netherlands, the flag was rejected too. Several other countries were set to reject the treaty but their referendums were withdrawn by the politicians. So the EU constitutionally does not have this flag. The people did not want it to represent the EU.

Then, even more ironically, the Constitutional Treaty was re-assembled from a jigsaw puzzle of articles and amendments and turned into the Lisbon Treaty. Did the Lisbon Treaty have an article defining the European flag and the anthem? 

No. The article which was in the Constitutional Treaty was left out of the Lisbon Treaty! Why? Because the British objected that this made the EU appear to be a federal State, which obviously it wasn't.

There is no article in the Lisbon Treaty that says the Flag of the EU is that which is widely flown outside all EU buildings or inside government offices. The best politicians could come up with was a statement by 17 States, declaration 52, that was added later to the treaty.  

Flag and Song

In 1986 at the invitation of the Council of Europe the European Communities were invited with conditions to use both the flag and the European anthem, Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' as arranged for it by Herbert von Karajan. This invitation was accepted by the European Council, which was not a Community institution. It was not even a body with a legal personality. That's like the neighbour of the neighbour saying the lawnmower is his. That seems like the EU's European Council is violating a fundamental right -- the right to own and retain property.

The Council of Europe was designed to safeguard human rights after the abuses of Nazism and Soviet communism. In short, unjust rule by a self-defined elite or ideology. 

All Member States of the European Communities and the EU have to be members of the Council of Europe. They have to respect its Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The EU is in evident crisis with a democratic deficit, closed-door government, and a crying need to re-establish just and honest principles for the Future of Europe. It needs to review its origins.

On 5 May 1949 Robert Schuman said in a speech at the signature ceremony of the Council of Europe Statute in London that adherence to this legal system defines 'Europe' more than geography. 

The lesson is that the EU must conform to the Human Rights of the Council of Europe. That is why all early treaties were discussed and passed in the Council of Europe. Schuman himself explained the institutions and the democratic mechanism of the European Community before the Assembly of the Council of Europe in August 1950. 

The ultimate European Court is not the Court of the EU in Luxembourg but the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Who flies the flag? The flag belongs by invention, precedent and law to the Council of Europe. 

The use of the European flag by the Brussels institutions is an act of recognition of being part of Europe based on Fundamental Freedoms. 

These freedoms are recognized by States and their governments. They are not created by governments. Freedoms are given by God, not States. Citizens must be aware that Governments are primarily the entities that wish to curtail human freedoms by abuse of laws and regulations. Citizens need protection against the representatives of the citizens who believe they are better than citizens. The Council of Europe is the body that can do that. Certainly not the Lisbon Treaty's EU that was erected against the will of the people. That is an act of antipathy and hostility to elementary human rights.

States that stop fundamental freedoms can be suspended or even expelled from the Council of Europe. That was the case of Greece under the dictatorship of the colonels.

Among the Freedoms are: 

• Freedom  of Speech,
• Freedom of Assembly,
• Freedom of religion,
• Freedom to own and enjoy possessions etc.

Secret Steal

Did the EU politicians secretly steal the design? The evidence is there for all to judge. 

Power can corrupt. Politicians tend to accumulate powers against the people. They reduce or freeze the people's voice. It disturbs them. They might listen and then ignore voices crying out about injustice and requiring honest government.

Following a ruling by the Court of Justice, politicians were forced to hold European elections to the European Parliament in 1979. That was a quarter of a century after politicians had signed treaties that such elections should be held. Today no elections are afforded to the consultative committees. The Council of Ministers still holds sessions behind closed doors instead of open sessions as the treaties require.

Many people objected to the way the politicians had responded to the ruling on European elections. The treaty and the great Charter of the Community said that pan-European elections were necessary. Instead, the politicians followed only the first part of the sentence in the article in the treaties. They decided to hold national elections to the Parliament according to national rules they invented rather than one election with one statute. 

In the 1980s politicians, aware of public disgust at lack of open councils, and proper European elections, decided to launch a public relations operation to try to fool the people. 

At the meeting of the heads of State and Government at Dublin in December 1984, they called for a report on 'People's Europe'. Ironic indeed since they had denied elementary democracy to the people.

The Adonnino Report came up with a number of measures. They were mostly of dubious legality as if the politicians could command various measures without the agreement of the people. Changes in sovereignty and constitutionality require the assent of the people. Instead the key feature was to provide a feeling of branding, and respond to what they considered to be a federal wish-list.

Prominent among these measures was the flag and the anthem. So what was the solution of the Adonnino panel? It made clear that the 12-star flag belonged to the Council of Europe. As a subset of this Human Rights Europe, the European Communities would have to indicate just that. So the committee suggested that a large letter E should be placed in the centre of the flag to show that dependency.

 Brand theft

So how did the EU get the same flag as that of the Council of Europe? 

What is more legitimate in choosing symbols of sovereignty: 

• a referendum of the people or 
• a secret meeting?

Guess which system was used to decide on the flag?

Yes, the flag was decided at a closed door meeting of the Heads of State and Government at Milan in June 1985. It excluded the public and discussed the matter in private. 

What happened? Some like the British were against creating a flag with implications of sovereignty and without formal agreement of the people. 

So a compromise was reached. The meeting decided that that they would create a 'logo' not a flag. 

And quite impudently also decided they would remove the E from the centre. It was then exactly the same as the flag of the Council of Europe! Why?

So what happened to the use of the logo of twelve stars? It did not last long. 

Within a mere few months it changed from a flag with an E, to a logo without an E, to a flag without an E.

On 26 May 1986, the twelve stars were officially raised as a flag outside the HQ building of the European Commission.

This is an audacious act of brand-stealing. If it were a question of a firm taking the design of a can of Heinz beans or producing something called Coca Cola they would be taken to Court.  

It is brand theft. 

The secret meeting of the European politicians feels that it can steal with impunity. 

Origin of the Flag

The European flag was adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 9 December 1955 following a resolution in the Assembly:

Against the blue sky of the Western world, the stars symbolise the peoples of Europe in a form of a circle, a sign of union. Their number is invariably twelve, the figure twelve being the symbol of perfection and entirety.

— Council of Europe. Paris, 7–9 December 1955.

In fact the question of creating a flag had been raised at the start of Europe's great institution that defines Europe as the zone of free speech and human rights. The Council started its work in August 1949 with 12 signatory States: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK (the ten signatories of the Statute on 5 May 1949) and two States that signed before the first session: Greece and Turkey and then in1950 from opposite end of Europe: Iceland.

French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman signs Statute of Council of Europe at
St James's Palace, London, 5 May 1949.

Proposed designs came from across Europe and far beyond. (One, with a single gold star on a blue background, came from a European named C W Raymon in Japan but this design was already in use.) 

The Council's Director of Information, Paul Levy, a Belgian, was in charge of the project, and liked the basic design. In September 1953, the Assembly proposed 15 stars (then the number of States). French deputy  Robert Bichet was rapporteur. But the Germans in the Council of Ministers refused. Among the 15 was the Saar, a disputed territory.  The Saar objected to being cut out. 

What about thirteen stars? Twelve stars in a circle with a large star in the centre? That was rejected as many did not like thirteen. 

The Secretary General Leon Marchal suggested just 12 stars.  Levy was charged to provide reasons to support it. He replied: 

'Twelve is the sign of perfection and fullness. There were twelve tables of law in Rome; there are twelve apostles; there are twelve sons of Jacob; twelve months of the year; and twelve hours in the day; ... twelve signs of the zodiac represent the entire universe, so why shouldn't twelve stars represent Europe of both sides of the Iron Curtain and both sides of the Pyrenees?'

Leon Marchal drew the case of the twelve stars surrounding the woman of Revelation 12, which biblically represent the twelve tribes of Israel (as distinct to Roman Catholic views). Levy drew up details of the design for public use. Levy must therefore be considered the designer of the flag. 

Was the flag a Marian or Catholic symbol? Not according to Levy who was at the origin of the design. It was Levy who drew that exact specifications of the flag. Levy was a Holocaust survivor. Marchal was also keen to have a politically neutral emblem. A religious symbol would not have passed the Assembly and the Committee of Ministers.

The Assembly's adoption of the flag on 8 December 1955, a 'Marian' date, was a 'political accident.' (Sauver l'Europe, pp163-8, published 1978.) The Marian idea was a later unsubstantiated fiction. The final decision was made on 9 December by the Committee of Ministers. 

Meanwhile, officials at the European Coal and Steel Community had created their own flag. It was a not very aesthetic design. It had six stars in two rows of three but on a field divided horizontally between blue (steel) and black (coal). 

Robert Schuman much preferred the Levy design. Then some decades later, in 1983 the European Parliament decided to take the flag as its emblem. The European Communities as a whole then decided they would also do the same.

For Schuman the synergy that was in the original proposition between the Council of Europe and the Community reinforced the necessity of unity: the Council of Europe was and is the human rights guarantor of the proper working of the Community.

Conclusion: 

The lesson of the European Flag is that all European institutions must come under the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and democratic supervision of the institutions of the Council of Europe.  That includes respect for property rights.

The EU leaders will only properly guide Europe to her destiny when they are honest with themselves. 

IOC1: SHAME on the Olympics! SHAME on Europe! SHAME on Germany!

Renew the Olympic spirit of peace in sport! Athletes from around the world, inside and outside the stadium at London, and the general public watching the Olympic opening events can all help. It started to go wrong forty years ago.

In a terrorist attack at the Olympics in Munich in 1972, eleven Israeli athletes were murdered.  A German policeman also lost his life. The German organizers failed to provide security safeguards for their new democracy. Unwilling to have their Olympics dubbed an authoritarian operation with allusions to Hitler's 'Nazi' Olympics in Berlin in 1936, they showed scant sensitivity to real dangers posed by terrorist groups. The Arab terrorist group, Black September, linked to Fatah of the PLO of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas was responsible for taking the athletes hostage and the subsequent  massacre. It was further responsible for hijacking Belgian Sabena and German Lufthansa aircraft, killing high European, Jordanian and US officials, letter bombs and other bombings of energy plants in Germany and the Netherlands, plus other outrages in Athens and New York.

At the service after the killings of the athletes, the President of the Olympics Committee failed even to mention them by name in his remarks. 'The games must go on. We must proceed with our efforts to keep them pure and praiseworthy. We declare, therefore, this day as a day mourning and we will continue all events as planned, one day later.' he said. Thus was truth and the conscience of the world smothered.

In 1896 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic ideal to build on the ancient Greek example that wars should be forbidden while the Olympic sports took place. Its present Charter says: 'Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on ... the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.' The IOC took no notice of the warning made that day 'the entire fabric of international life is in danger of tearing apart and disintegrating.'

The Olympics is supposedly about principles and PEACE between nations and peoples. The next year saw war and Europe impoverished by more terrorism including the Oil Weapon. IOC action remains unprincipled. For FORTY years the International Olympics Committee has miserably failed to address this issue at the CORE of its existence. It had another opportunity this year. The London Olympics open on 27 July.

A widow has tried for nearly forty years to have the International Olympics Committee agree to recognize this affront to the Olympic spirit by just one minute's silence. The IOC was formally requested to reaffirm its peaceful principle by the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and US Congressmen representing the widows of slain athletes. They asked the IOC President Jacques Rogge and the Committee to hold one minute's silence at the opening of the Olympics in memory of those slain athletes. They said it should act as a reminder about the purpose of the Olympics.

The IOC REFUSED.

Mr Ayalon retorted: 'Unfortunately, this response is unacceptable as it rejects the central principles of global fraternity on which the Olympic ideal is supposed to rest.' In a statement Ayalon said: 'The terrorist murders of the Israeli athletes were not just an attack on people because of their nationality and religion; it was an attack on the Olympic Games and the international community. Thus it is necessary for the Olympic Games as a whole to commemorate this event in the open rather than only in a side event.'

On 8 June 2012 the US House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed Resolution 663 urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to institute a minute's silence at every future Olympics Opening Ceremony. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee asked for the IOC to think again.
Mrs Ankie Spitzer, widow of slain fencing master and team coach Andre Spitzer, started an online petition. It now has more than 72,000 signatures. 'One minute of silence will clearly say to the world that what happened in 1972 can never happen again,' Mrs Spitzer says in the petition. 'Please do not let history repeat itself.'

But where is Europe? Where is Germany in this? Where is the Olympics organizer, Great Britain?  What is the attitude of the European Institutions? Why are they SILENT?

During World War Two, six million of Europe's nine million Jews were exterminated by a Nazi regime that had overthrown democracy. Robert Schuman and the founding fathers of Europe said 'NEVER AGAIN!' They created the Council of Europe. This defined the New Europe. Membership was only allowed to nations and peoples who respected the European Convention of Human Rights.

The Statutes of the Council of Europe where signed in London in May 1949. Only nations that are members of the Council of Europe can become members of the European Community or the European Union.

The aim of the Council of Europe, originally to be called the European Union, was according to their Statutes the 'safeguarding and realizing the ideals and principles which are their common heritage' recognizing the 'rule of law and that every person placed under its jurisdiction should enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms.' This step, said Schuman, 'created the foundations of a spiritual and political cooperation, from which the European spirit will be born, the principle of a vast and enduring supranational union.'

His colleague Pierre-Henri Teitgen told the Council of Europe that recognition of the principles was necessary because:

'An honest man does not become a gangster in 24 hours. Infection takes time. In thought and in conscience, he has to let himself be drawn into temptation. He gets used to the fault before he commits it. He descends the stairwell step by step. One day, he finds evil has beaten him and he has lost all scruples. ... Evil progresses in an underhand way, with a minority operating to seize what amounts to the levers of power. One by one, freedoms are suppressed, in one sphere then another. Public opinion is smothered, the worldwide conscience is dulled and the national conscience asphyxiated. ... Intervention is needed before it becomes too late.'

Today the EU has its own diplomatic service, called the European External Action Service. It should act based on European values, supranational values, like Human Rights and the respect of law.
Where is the External Action Service? What on earth is it doing if it has not made clear it should act Europe's fundamental values and that all the EU rejects terrorism? Why has Europe not put all its diplomatic weight behind supporting the call of the widows and the other government leaders?

The leaders and the EU have a short time to act. If they do not act formally the people of Europe and around the world can. All who deplore the IOC's irresponsibility and the slide to lawlessness can act independently and collectively.

The Israeli government together with support of all sympathetic governments, organizations and friends should set a TIME during or at the end of the opening ceremony. At this moment  all who wish can observe a minute’s silence can do so, regardless of what the IOC has decided. Many athletes who deplore sectarian killing of athletes can show the lead. At the Olympics Opening ceremonies all athletes are free to follow this recommendation and shame the IOC. The US presidential candidates should be asked if they support this ‘INFORMAL’ minute’s silence. So should all Europe's leaders.

The programme for the opening cermonies on 27 July has been announced. It provides an ideal opportunity to add a minute's silence in a natural way.

Part of the theme will be William Blake's poem 'Jerusalem' -- with the music by Hubert Parry which many consider to be a sort of English anthem. It is sung at the Last Night of the Proms and many other occasions, including sporting events.

Many people will sing the words. The last stanza is:
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

Those who support the Olympic ideal that the Games should be free of wars, killings and ideological battle should re-affirm it. They can do so by publicizing their intention to remain standing after the singing for an extra minute in silence.  This should act as a renewed remembrance that the Olympics is supposed to be about peace between people and nations. Nations should denounce terrorism and killing at a world sport event.

What is required is for all friends of peace to make their intentions known. Both in the stadium and outside the stadium. Wherever they can, let all people around the world remain silent for one minute after this anthem.