“The EU flag is today’s trend”

A month ago in the city of Sumy there was an incident: the EU flag was stolen from the flagpole in the city center.

“Today in Ukraine the European flags are sold like hot cakes, in Sumy, the city of the European choice, it started even yesterday. They are so in demand that the people willing to get a flag of the European Council walk in the city with tin snips looking for one or are strong enough to tear metal cables. That is why we are happy for our country – the EU flag is in trend today,” Iryna Diadenko, director of the utility company Sumy Promotion Agency reacted to the incident. She added that this is the way some unknown people chose to establish the European values and decided to approach the EU by stealing the flag.

We moused out this funny story preparing for publication the special issue of the addendum to Route No.1 called “Sumy: non-trivial history.”  So, we decided to develop on the topic and found out that the question “Where can I buy an EU flag in Ukraine” is topical for many readers. Here is an up-to-date example: before the action “The future of Ukraine is with the EU!” the public activist and political expert, a regular contributor of our edition Oleksandr Solontai wrote: “Friends, who has an EU flag? On Monday there will be a meeting to support the European integration and I want to go there with Ukrainian and European flags.” Taking into account the comments under his post, buying or borrowing an EU flag is problem in Ukraine…

Where is it possible to buy an EU flag in Kyiv? In bookshops and souvenir shops, in Andriivsky Uzviz or on the stalls with souvenirs in Maidan Nezalezhnosti as there is everything there… Real searches did not confirm these assumptions. One has to put quite many efforts to find a small blue flag with a circle of 12 stars. In particular we in the office decided to take an easy route and to find those who sell or make flags to order on the Internet and buy an EU flag at one of the websites.

The companies producing the flags confirmed to The Day that now dark-blue flags with a 12-star circle are in demand.

“We have been on the flag market producing and selling them for over 12 years: the demand for EU flags activated three years ago and it is growing every month,” administrator of the on-line shop flagmaster.com.ua Daryna SHCHERBYNA told The Day in her commentary. According to her, people started actively ordering EU flags in the summer and at the beginning of the autumn. “When we started asking what the reason for such a boom was, we were explained that they had issued a legislative act ‘recommending’ the governing agencies to place the EU flags next to the Ukrainian,” Shcherbyna said. According to her, at that time the clients were mainly the employees of the governing agencies from all over Ukraine. In September educational institutions showed their interest towards EU flags and started buying them.