"Europe's" approach to internationalising higher education is a multi-facetted set of political strategies that, over time, has become more complex as an array of European-level actors, and most importantly the European Commission, respond to pressures in the regional and global economies. In this article I explore this complexity, suggesting that Europe's inter/nationalizing of higher education is a long standing set of projects: culturally--to contribute to the construction of Europe as a distinctive entity; economically--to construct a competitive Europe; and, politically--to locate greater power at the supranational scale that would enable European-level actors more control over regional and global affairs.