By Mail On Sunday Reporter
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Eric Pickles is furious he's being forced to fly the EU flag outside the Department of Communities and Local Government
A row over the Government being forced to fly the European Union flag took a farcical turn last night after Brussels offered to pay for a new flagpole if it complied with the demand.
The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this year that Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles was furious after being told that he faced being fined under new European Commission rules if he did not fly the EU flag continuously outside his office.
His headquarters currently has two flagpoles: one permanently bears the Union Flag while the other has been used mainly to display British regional emblems.
The Cabinet Minister said the demand showed a ‘deep sense of political insecurity’ and called on the European Union to ‘grow up’.
Mr Pickles is currently obliged to fly the flag â€" a circle of 12 golden stars on an azure background â€" for a week each year, starting from Europe Day on May 9.
But under the proposed change, drafted by the European Commission and due to take effect within the next two years, the flag would have to fly permanently outside any organisation which managed development funding from Brussels.
Mr Pickles wrote to the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Austrian Johannes Hahn, to protest about the demand to use it to fly the EU flag.
In his reply Mr Hahn replied: ‘I thought flying the [EU] flag all the year round would be a great pleasure for you.
‘In that respect, I would finance a third flagpole’.
Last night Tory MP Chris Heaton Harris said: ‘With the euro in meltdown, I would suggest that the EU had more to worry about than what flag flies over Eric Pickles’s department.’
European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Austrian Johannes Hahn has offered to buy Mr Pickles a flagpole so he can fly the EU flag permanently
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