May 8, 2002
By Paul Waugh and Robert Booth

Forget the stars, hail the stripes. The European Union's image is set for an overhaul, with the replacement of its gold star flag by a dazzling new bar-code-style logo.

The new design, which has been commissioned from the ultra-fashionable Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, will bleed all of the colours of the national flags of EU nations alongside each other.

Part Blackpool rock, part BBC test card, part Bridget Riley painting, British observers can draw plenty of home-grown references from the logo should they wish. But Mr Koolhaas told The Independent the design owes more to his attempt to represent the unique "diversity and unity" of Europe in one image.

The redesign was commissioned by Romano Prodi, the European Commission president, and Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian Prime Minister. Mr Prodi has seen the new logo and asked departments across the Commission to look at altering Brussels' visual communication in the light of Koolhaas' work. If adopted, flags and letterheads across the member states will be changed to earn their own stripes.

The current EU flag, with 12 stars on a blue background, was officially adopted by the European Commission in 1986, with each star meant to represent a state in the European Union.

Eurosceptic critics will claim a deckchair pattern is singularly appropriate for an institution that frequently surpasses the Titanic when it comes to seat-arranging. But perhaps the real drawback, as any follower of TV's Changing Rooms will relate, is that stripes are now soooo Nineties, darling.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=292939