Abstract Although not in the Rome Treaty, the EEC/EU has gradually developed fundamental rights narratives which constitute a political myth. They have a common basis of foundational claims, placing fundamental rights, retrospectively, as inherent to the EU and based on a common European heritage. Like all myths, this narrative contains factual error, but is believed and acted upon by both institutional myth-makers and civil society actors. Through mythological free-riding on the Member States and the Council of Europe, the EU has been relatively successful in avoiding myth competition. Success in the longer run depends on broader myth appropriation, coherence and competition with other narratives.