Posted on 19 April 2018
The Ruhr Museum and the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum in Bochum are organizing an exhibition entitled ‘Das Zeitalter der Kohle. Eine europäische Geschichte’, which will feature the flag of the European Coal and Steel Community on loan from the Historical Archives of the European Union.
The ‘Age of Coal: A European History ’exhibition will be on display from 27 April until 11 November and marks the end of coal production in Germany by examining the historical, technical and cultural significance of coal.
The end of coal marks the end of an era for both German and European history, as the production of coal has driven the economy of the Ruhr area for the past two hundred years.
The flag of the European Coal and Steel Community, which is a part of our holdings, will be a center piece of the exhibition. It was deposited at the HAEU in 2002, after the Treaty of Paris setting up the ECSC expired in July of that year.
The bicolored flag was the first European flag, with black representing coal and light blue representing steel. It also features two horizontal parallel lines of stars, each representing a member country. However, after the twelfth star was added – the same number of stars as pictured on the EU flag – the institutions decided to no longer increase the number of stars.
This item is part of the first shipment of Enrico Gibellieri’s archives, a former member of the European Economic and Social Committee, to the HAEU.
“It was used during all the closing ceremonies of the Treaty, both in Luxembourg and Brussels, where it was lowered on July 23rd 2002 from the flagpole in front of the Breydel building, which was the seat of the European Commission, in my presence and the then President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi,” recalls Mr Gibellieri.
More information about the exhibition is available on its website.