The Games were envisioned and are governed by the EOC which announced their launch at its 41st General Assembly in Rome, on 8 December 2012.

[3] The European Games are not related to the European Championships, a separate multi-sport event organised by individual European sports federations, bringing together the individual European Championships of sports such as athletics, swimming, artistic gymnastics, cycling, rowing, golf, and triathlon under a single 'brand' on a four-year cycle beginning in 2018, and broadcast by agreement with the EBU.

The European Youth Olympic Festivals, both winter and summer, and broadly mirroring the Youth Olympic Games are organised biennially, while the quadrennial Games of the Small State of Europe (not to be confused with the separate Island Games) provide competition opportunities for the handful of microstates in the European continent.

The 2019 edition was held in Minsk, Belarus from 21 to 30 June on a reduced scale when the original host, the Netherlands, withdrew.

The figures in each cell indicate the number of events for each sport contested at the respective Games.