This study is a comparative analysis of literary curricula in six European countries and is part of the project LiFT-2, funded by Comenius’ Life Long Learning Programme of the European Commission. The result of this project, that involved almost 4500 teachers, is a European literary framework for secondary education which can be described as a developmental competence-based taxonomy for teachers. This article aims to identify tendencies in the field of teaching literature in Europe on the basis of the formal curricula of the participating countries, and to examine how the teachers working with those curricula could benefit from the framework. In the conclusion, the authors emphasize the role of LiFT-2 instruments for a more structured approach to developing literary competences within the curricula for literature in different European countries.