Last modified: 2026-02-21 by olivier touzeau
Keywords: belgium | luxembourg | netherlands | copyrighted flag | benelux | lion (yellow) |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
![[Benelux flag]](../images/e/eu-benlx.gif)
Unofficial flag of Benelux - Image by Mark Sensen, 21 March 1997
See also:
Benelux is a cooperation between BElgium, the NEtherlands and LUXembourg established in 1944. Its role nowadays is mostly cultural, but once it was important as customs union before the European Union was established.
Mark Sensen, 21 March 1997
Around 1957/1958 the Comité voor Belgisch-Nederlands-Luxemburgse Samenwerking (Committee for Belgian-Dutch-Luxembourgian Cooperation) commissioned a Dutch flag manufacturer to design a flag, and the latter copyrighted this design. Because of this the flag did not become popular, and I have never seen this flag used. The flag is a composition of the three country's flags and coats of arms; it is horizontally divided red-white)blue, with on the white stripe a black panel. Overall is placed a yellow lion rampant, with a red tongue and white claws.
Sources:
Mark Sensen, 21 March 1997
There is another artistic rendition of this flag, shown on the flag plates of the Winkler Prins Encyclopaedia (Elsevier), 6th Edition, 1954 (vol. 18, VEN-ZIJZ, Vlaggen plate, p.180-181). There, the lion has a less flamboyant design and is comparable to the one on the South Holland provincial flag.
Jan Mertens, 1 May 2003
Michel Lupant had a long telephone call with the head of office of
Benelux. He was told that the Economic Union of Benelux never
adopted a flag.
Klaes Sierksma, the Dutch translation of the source first
mentioned above ([ped80]), wrote me
that this flag was used on several public occasions related to
Belgian-Dutch-Luxembourgian cooperation, but indeed never
officially as the flag of Benelux.
Mark Sensen, 5 March 2003
A photo at www.uf-aguedaeborralha.pt shows an interesting welcome sign/flag, apparently sponsored by the communal government, fastened to a street light and with a stiff staff at the top (like Swiss-style Knatterfahnen). It is white filled mostly with a grid of disparate national flags in 2 columns of 13, all flags stretched to ~1:2, topped with the Portuguese national flag double wide, between "Bem-vindo" and "Welcome" and, at the bottom, also double wide, the former Borralha communal flag. Those 2×13 national flags are:
IT BR BG CH TR RU BX IS ES JP GB US FR (?) FI DE ZA LV NZ SE AT RO (?) EE PL DK NL (?) IE
The BX flag is indeed the unequal horizontal triband of red over wider white over blue with a central black area filling up the white stripe and a yellow rampant lion overall — that we show as the flag of Benelux. The choice of this flag in this one medium is irrelevant and contingent, but it’s interesting that this flag come up to be included in whatever hare-brained process used to find the other flags. Also interesting is that the exact artwork is not that of Mark Sensen’s.
António Martin-Tuválkin, 12 February 2026