EU rejects call to change flag

There are no plans to change the European Union flag, Commission officials in Brussels insisted today, despite a bold new design proffered by a Dutch architect.

The traditional EU flag, with 12 stars on a blue background has been unchanged since it was adopted in 1986.

The suggestion for replacing it came during a Commission-sponsored brain-storming meeting last year to discuss the future role of Brussels as the ‘‘capital of Europe’’.

Rem Koolhaas, invited to take part as a noted architectural innovator, suggested that the ‘‘diversity and unity’’ of Europe could better be reflected by a ‘‘flag barcode’’ - a flag with a series of vertical stripes including all the colours in the national flags of the member states.

His idea appeared in a summary of the meeting published earlier this year - along with his suggestion that all EU buildings in Brussels should be replaced by one big ‘‘idyllic’’ campus on the site of an old customs warehouse beside a canal.

Other suggestions for developing the future functions of Brussels in its increasing role as the EU capital included setting up an ‘‘Institute for Multi-lingualism’’, a ‘‘Centre for Advanced Studies’’ and introducing international architectural competitions for designs for a future ‘‘European Quarter’’ in Brussels.

‘‘All the ideas put forward at our meeting have been welcomed with interest, but we did not commission a design for a new flag and there is no intention of replacing the current one,’’ said a Commission spokesman.

The gold stars on the present blue flag were never intended to depict the number of member states - otherwise the flag would have been rendered obsolete in 1995 when three new countries joined to make the current 15-nation EU.

Instead the stars, forming an exact circle, are placed in the positions of the hours on the face of a clock. They ‘‘represent the union of the peoples of Europe’’, according to the Commission.

‘‘The number of stars is fixed, 12 being the symbol of perfection and unity’’ says the Commission’s website.

The flag was originally the emblem of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, which pre-dates the European Union, has 42 members, and upholds the European Convention of Human Rights.