Since the 2000s, the legitimisation of the European Union (EU) has beenincreasingly politicised and become a battle of narratives on variouspolicy issues, of which higher education (HE) is a prominent one.Although not a direct EU competence, HE has been subject to a dynamicof ‘creeping integration’, turning universities into arenas, instruments andobjects of European public action. Our article examines to what extentand how mainstream EU political narratives have been mobilised in HE byEuropean institutions, stakeholders and civil society. We focus on twooverarching narratives: ‘Europe of rights’ and ‘Europe of values’, the latterbeing divided into two sub-narratives, ‘Market Europe’ and ‘CulturalEurope’. Case studies shed light on the use of these narratives since2017 in relation to different policy instruments (e.g., ERASMUS,European University Institute, European University Alliances). Our findingssuggest a weakening of the ‘Europe of rights’ narrative and an ambiva-lence in the use of the ‘Europe of values’ narrative, characterised by themainstreaming of the ‘market Europe’ narrative and a resurgence of the‘cultural Europe’ narrative. In conclusion, developments in HE confirm thebroader politicisation of narratives in European governance, with somespecificities related to the symbolic function of universities.