The Europe Prize for the Theatre was instituted in 1986 by the Comitato Taormina Arte (Taormina Arte Committee) with the approval of, and a contribution from, the European Commission. The initiative immediately set itself apart from the usual theatrical awards, not only because of the size of the EC contribution (60,000 Euros), but also because of the personalities called to sit on the jury and, above all, the motivations for the award itself. The desire for cultural exchange, combined with a symbolic gesture of peace, was expressed in the first jury's recognition of Ariane Mnouchkine and her Théâtre du Soleil, and in the presentation of a special award, presented by the then EC Commissioner of Culture, Carlo Ripa di Meana, to the Greek actress, Melina Mercouri, who had become Minister of Culture in her own country (Greece), and had contributed so much to the politcal and cultural world. When Mnouchkine received her award she dedicated it to the "other Europe;" it was a "thrilling, prescient coup de théâtre." The second Premio Europa constituted another step forward because the study and reflection on the work of the prize winner that followed the presentation of the award, set the style for future years.

That year the award was presented to Peter Brook whose genius exerted a tremendous fascination on everyone who participated in the three-day meeting in Taormina, the highlight of which was a memorable open dialogue between the great director and Grotowski, accompanied by a series of reports, testimonies, demonstrations with actors and video screenings, documented in the book entitled Gli anni di Peter Brook (The Years of Peter Brook). Since then the Premio Europa has been under the aegis of the Council of Europe and of Unesco, and enjoyed the collaboration of the International Society of Theatre Critics. The third year was particularly important because the Premio Europa was assigned to Giorgio Strehler, who proposed a much hoped for collaboration between the Union des Théâtres de l'Europe and the Premio Europa, and also because the New Theatrical Realities award was instituted and presented to Russian director Anatolij Vassil'ev, who held a workshop in which he demonstrated his approach to theatre. The reading and critique of scenes from Elvire et la passion téatrâle by Jouvet, given by Strehler and Giulia Lazzarini, perfectly summed up the significance of the event; in fact, at this sixth Premio Europa, we shall be presenting a collection of notes on that event entitled: Strehler o la passione teatrale (Strehler: A Passion for the Theatre). At the fourth Premio Europa, after a moment of reflection between the announcement of the winners by the jury and the presentation of the awards; namely, the Premio Europa to Heiner MŸller, and the New Theatrical Realities award to Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, for his innovative sets, to the Comediants for their street performances, and to Eimuntas Nekrosius for his dramatic works, the hopes of the Committee and the Juries were realized when the Premio Europa was transformed into a three-day event, featuring not only workshops in which a great number of theatre people, and not a few Italian and foreign directors participated, but also many creative and spectacular events.

The fifth year, marked by the return of Vassil'ev and Nekrosius, focussed on Bob Wilson, who presented Persephone after being awarded the Premio Europa by a jury which, for the first time, went outside Europe to pay tribute to a versatile artist who has contributed to the development of theatre within and beyond European borders. The New Theatrical Realities award, on the other hand, was shared by the Théatre de Complicité, one of the most original British companies to emerge in recent years, and to the new discovery Carte Blanche-Compagnia della Fortezza which for years has developed the concept of theatre as a way of claiming freedom and human dignity, putting on stage actors/non-actors incarcerated in the prisons of Volterra.