Miss Europe is a beauty pageant for women from all over Europe. It was established in February 1927 by Fanamet [de], the European distributor of Paramount, as a one-off event where the winner was to star in a film directed by F. W. Murnau.^{[citation needed]} After the initial twelve-person jury couldn't decide between 10 contestants, a runoff election was held where Murnau chose the winner. Murnau ended up choosing Štefica Vidačić of Yugoslavia as the winner and the first ever Miss Europe. Miss Europe was later re-established in December 1928 by French journalist Maurice de Waleffe (1874–1946), who also created, in 1920, what by 1927 had become the Miss France pageant. Miss Europe, under de Waleffe, was first held at the Paris Opera with participants from 18 countries. The first contest under de Waleffe did not occur until February 1929.

The contest was interrupted by the onset of World War II but was later re-established, after de Waleffe died, by Roger Zeiler, chairman of the French Committee of Elegance, who teamed up with Claude Berr and they founded the International Committee for the election of Miss Europe (French: Comité International Pour L'election de Miss Europe), often shortened as simply the Miss Europe Committee (French: Comité Miss Europe), under the Mondial Events Organization (MEO). Most contestants won their respective national contests for Miss World & Miss Universe, and participated as supplemental training for their respective competitions. Berr died in 1981 and in 2003, Roger Zeiler sold the license for the pageant to Endemol France, part of the Dutch television production company Endemol. In 2007 to 2009, the competition was announced to be held in various location such as Moscow and Beirut but it did not happen as they had to stop the contest after 2006 due to internal problems with the organizations.

In 2016, the pageant was restarted by the newly formed Miss Europe Organization originally headquartered in London but then later moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. There is a connection with the previous organizers as the winner of the 2016 edition wore the same crown (tiara/diadem) as her predecessors, thus making this Miss Europe pageant the de facto successor to the main one.

From 1951 to 2002 there was a rival Miss Europe competition organized by the "Comité Officiel et International Miss Europe". This was founded in 1950 by Jean Raibaut in Paris, the headquarters later moved to Marseille. The winners wore different titles like Miss Europe, Miss Europa or Miss Europe International.^{[citation needed]}

Miss European Global is a beauty pageant in which each country has a team of six girls and one girl from each team competes for Miss European Global.

Mrs. Europe is a large beauty competition in which delegates must prepare a report, compete in different categories, and work together to overcome challenges they face during the competition.

The Miss Europe Global and Mrs. Europe Global is an annual pageant designed without any ethnicity requirements.

Miss Europe Continental is an international beauty contest based on trends in fashion and cinema. The International Competition, with its network of agents, organizes selections every month throughout Europe.