Government unveils logo for upcoming EU presidency

On Wednesday the Czech government unveiled the new logo representing the country during its EU presidency, which its takes up for a six-month period on January 1. The logo – which features colourful block letters – was unveiled in a special ceremony by the prime minister. Radio Prague has more on the new design.

Photo: CTK

Positive, playful, upbeat: that is how some are describing the Czech logo for its upcoming EU presidency. Bright letters in a stadium-friendly font spell quite simply “EU2009.CZ” the internet website of the Czech presidency (to go up soon). Aside from official documents, the design, which was chosen out of a total of 350 entries, will also feature on many promotional items, from ties to umbrellas, over the next six months. Here is how the new design was described on Wednesday by the Minister for European Affairs Alexandr Vondra:

“The logo reflects two mottos: one which we selected earlier emphasising a Europe without barriers - and the other the EU’s ‘unity in diversity’.”

Mirek Topolánek, photo: CTK

Diversity is reflected in the logo through its colours, the colours of the EU and EU member flags. But the government’s enthusiasm over the new design has not been shared by all: the opposition Social Democrat leader Jiří Paroubek, for example, at first thought a Czech TV reporter was pulling his leg on Wednesday when she showed him the design. Some media analysts, while not quite as negative, admit the design, which features no other elements besides the letters, is something of a “missed opportunity”. A little earlier I spoke to Daniel Koppl, editor of Media & Marketing magazine:

“It’s nothing special, it’s a normal logo with nothing really extra. I think that at the start there is always a brief, a when the brief is conservative from the beginning you can’t suddenly bring in a revolution. In this case the brief was conservative from the very start. ”

Despite such reservations, the new logo has overall been greeted far more positively than the first leg of the government’s information campaign - an ad which focussed on a sugar cube as its central motif. That campaign presented a rather ambivalent slogan suggesting the country would either “sweeten” the European Union or give it “a taste of its own medicine”, a mixed-message which a number of observers considered strongly inappropriate.