Fact-checking Antonio Tajani's interpretation of the European flag

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Fact-checking Antonio Tajani's interpretation of the European flag  Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has described the European flag as symbolising Europe’s 'Judeo-Christian roots', triggering controversy.   READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/07/10/fact-checking-antonio-tajanis-interpretation-of-the-european-flag  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00Fact-checking Tajani's claims about the European flag.

00:06Italy's foreign minister Antonio Tajani has sparked controversy with this post on X.

00:12He describes the European flag, the symbol of the European Union, as blue like the cloak of the Madonna,

00:19with the 12 stars of the tribes of Israel arranged in a circle, a symbol of our Judeo-Christian roots.

00:25We spoke to a historian who firmly rejected Tajani's religious depiction of the flag, saying it's incorrect.

00:33We need to go back to the 1950s to trace the flag's origins, when the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe,

00:38not an EU institution, began receiving proposals for a European flag.

00:43These have been preserved until today.

00:46Among them was the circle of 12 yellow stars on a blue background, proposed by a staff member named Arsene Heitz.

00:52It was adopted by the Council of Europe in 1955.

00:55Three decades later, in 1985, it was adopted by the European communities, which later became the EU.

01:02But the EU itself describes the flag as standing for the values and shared identity of millions of Europeans

01:09united in their diversity and a symbol of unity, democracy and peace.

01:15There is no indication that it carries religious symbolism.

01:18One historian told us that when adopted by the Council of Europe, the flag's blue colour was described as representing the sky,

01:25and the number of stars, 12, was said to represent perfection and harmony.

01:30In fact, some proposals for the flag were rejected because of their religious analogies.

01:35Despite this, the flag's designer, Arsene Heitz, a Catholic, did later say that a biblical verse,

01:43as well as this statue of the Virgin Mary in the Cathedral of Strasbourg, did provide inspiration for his design.

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