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Benelux

by Mark Sensen

Unofficial flag

Presentation of Benelux
Description of the flag
Status of the flag

See also:

Presentation of Benelux

The Benelux is a co-operation between BElgium, the NEtherlands and LUXembourg established in 1944. Its role nowadays is mostly cultural, but once it was important as customs union before the European Union was established.

Mark Sensen, 21 March 1997

Description of the flag

Around 1957/1958 the Comité voor Belgisch-Nederlands-Luxemburgse Samenwerking (Committee for Belgian-Dutch-Luxemburgian Cooperation) commissioned a Dutch flag manufacturer to design a flag, and the latter copyrighted this design. Because of this the flag did not become popular, and I have never seen this flag used. The flag is a composition of the three country's flags and coats of arms; it is horizontal red, white, blue, with on the white stripe a black panel. Overall is placed a yellow lion rampant, tongued red and nailed white.

Sources:

Moussault's lexicon van vlaggen en wapens [ped80]
Vlaggen - symbool, traditie, protocol [sie63]

Mark Sensen, 21 March 1997

There is another artistic rendition of this flag, shown on the flag plates of the Winkler Prins Encyclopaedia (Elsevier), 6th Edition, 1954 ( vol.18 VEN-ZIJZ, Vlaggen plate, p.180-181). There, the lion has a less flamboyant design and is comparable to the one on the South Holland provincial flag.

Jan Mertens, 1 May 2003

Status of the flag

Michel Lupant had a long telephone call with the head of office of Benelux. He was told that the Economic Union of Benelux never adopted a flag.

Klaes Sierksma, the Dutch translation of the source first mentioned above [ped80]), wrote me that this flag was used on several public occasions related to Belgian-Dutch-Luxemburgian cooperation, but indeed never officially as the flag of Benelux.

Mark Sensen, 5 March 2003