Rejected

When on 8 December 1955 the Council of Europe chose a design with 12 yellow stars arranged in a circle on blue background as the new flag of Europe, they refused more than 200 proposals that people had submitted until then. Each proposal documents an individual idea of Europe; while some of the proposals load existing symbols with new meaning (e.g. the sun, the E, the star, the key, the tiger), others use abstract forms to create new symbols. Together they transport the European zeitgeist and self-perception during a period when fundamental steps towards a European unification where about to be taken. On a visual level, they offer a profound understanding of today's state of Europe, its problems as well as its mission and potential.0The refused proposals for the flag of Europe?all of them are stored in the archives of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg?are published in this book for the first time. The publication includes a text by German-French artist and writer Marie Rotkopf that critically examines today's nationalisms in Europe.