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Belgium: Ministers and diplomats

Members of Government and Ambassadors
Ministry of Defense
Ministers Plenipotentiary, Envoys Extraordinary and Consuls General

See also:

Belgium

Members of Government and Ambassadors

Flag of Members of Government and Ambssadors - Image by Ole Andersen, 16 April 2005

According to Album des Pavillons [pay00], the flag used when a Member of the Government or an Ambassador is aboard is a square version of the Belgian national flag.
A similar flag had already been prescribed in 1936.

Ivan Sache, 16 April 2005

Ministry of Defense

Flag of the Ministry of Defense - Image by Santiago Dotor, 13 April 2003

The flag of the Ministry of Defense is rectangular, white with a thin green border (about 1/20th of the hoist and the emblem of the Ministry in the middle.
The roundel-like emblem in the middle of the flag has a blue outer ring, containing 12 yellow five-pointed stars and the NATO star in the bottom. The next ring is red and the next one is yellow. There is an inner black disc and on it and on the yellow ring a brown rampant lion, hovering above it a royal crown.
The lettering in the bottom of the red ring is, from left to right:
- MD: Ministère de la Défense (French);
- MOD: Ministry of Defense (English, for NATO);
- MLV: Ministerie van Landverdedeging (Dutch, strictly speaking, the abbreviation ought to be ML).

The flag is flown over the Ministry of Defense, Rue Lambermont / Lambermontstraat 8 in Brussels.

According to Léon Nyssen, the Minister of Defense, when aboard, uses the same square tricolor Belgian flags as the other Ministers of the Federal Government.

Former flag of the Minister of Defense - Image by Ivan Sache & Mark Sensen, 13 April 2003

Pedersen [ped71] shows the flag of the Minister of Defense as a Belgian tricolor (2:3) with the naval ensign (reduced to 1/3) in canton.
According to the successive editions of the Regulation ZDTr 005, prescribing "Ensigns, marks, triangles and wimpels in use by the Naval Force (now the Navy)", the Minister's flag did not exist yet in 1959 and had ceased to exist before January 1973. It was used between these years (exact dates are unknown), only when the Minister of National Defense was onboard (communications by Michel Lupant and Léon Nyssen).
Léon Nyssen adds that a personal flag was designed for the Minister of Defense in 1959. It was a Belgian tricolor flag with the letters MDN placed in a diagonal pattern in the yellow stripe. The letters were black in a Arial-like police.

Santiago Dotor, Ivan Sache & Jan Mertens, 13 April 2003

Ministers Plenipotentiary, Envoys Extraordinary and Consuls General

Diplomat's flag - Image by Željko Heimer, 16 April 2005

According to Album des Pavillons [pay00], the flag used when a diplomat with a rank lower than Ambassador is aboard is a square version of the Belgian national flag with a black royal crown in the middle.
A similar flag had already been prescribed in 1936.

Ivan Sache, 16 April 2005