European Union
The flag symbolises the EU as a whole but it is also the sole emblem of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm. However, all other bodies and agencies, except for the European Agency for Reconstruction, have their own emblem, albeit often inspired by the flag's design and colours.
As part of the EU's usage, the flag appears on the euro banknotes. Euro coins also display the twelve stars of the flag on both the national and common sides and the flag is sometimes used as an indication of the currency or the eurozone (a collective name for those countries that use the Euro).
The flag appears also on many driving licences and vehicle registration plates issued in the Union.
A proposal, soon to be discussed in the European Parliament, stipulate that all national sports teams, including football, rugby, cricket and the European Olympic teams, should have the EU emblem appear on their jerseys.
Read more about this topic: Flag Of Europe, Usage
Famous quotes containing the words european and/or union:
“I can never suppose this country so far lost to all ideas of self-importance as to be willing to grant America independence; if that could ever be adopted I shall despair of this country being ever preserved from a state of inferiority and consequently falling into a very low class among the European States.”
—George III (1738–1820)
“If the Union is now dissolved it does not prove that the experiment of popular government is a failure.... But the experiment of uniting free states and slaveholding states in one nation is, perhaps, a failure.... There probably is an “irrepressible conflict” between freedom and slavery. It may as well be admitted, and our new relations may as be formed with that as an admitted fact.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)