The 1978 European Athletics Indoor Championships were held at Palasport di San Siro in Milan, Italy, between 11 and 12 March 1978. It was the first time the championships were held in Italy.

Medal summary

Men

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
60 metres details	Nikolay Kolesnikov (URS)	6.64	Petar Petrov (BUL)	6.66	Aleksandr Aksinin (URS)	6.73
400 metres details	Pietro Mennea (ITA)	46.51	Ryszard Podlas (POL)	46.55	Nikolay Chernetskiy (URS)	46.72
800 metres details	Markku Taskinen (FIN)	1:47.35 NR	Olaf Beyer (GDR)	1:47.68	Roger Milhau (FRA)	1:47.8a
1500 metres details	Antti Loikkanen (FIN)	3:38.16 CR	Thomas Wessinghage (FRG)	3:38.23	Jürgen Straub (GDR)	3:40.2a
3000 metres details	Markus Ryffel (SUI)	7:49.5a	Emiel Puttemans (BEL)	7:49.9a	Jörg Peter (GDR)	7:50.1a
60 metres hurdles details	Thomas Munkelt (GDR)	7.62 =CR	Vyacheslav Kulebyakin (URS)	7.72	Giuseppe Buttari (ITA)	7.86
High jump details	Vladimir Yashchenko (URS)	2.35 WR	Rolf Beilschmidt (GDR)	2.29	Wolfgang Killing (FRG)	2.27
Pole vault details	Tadeusz Ślusarski (POL)	5.45	Vladimir Trofimenko (URS)	5.40	Vladimir Sergiyenko (URS)	5.40
Long jump details	László Szalma (HUN)	7.83	Ronald Desruelles (BEL)	7.75	Vladimir Tsepelyov (URS)	7.73
Triple jump details	Anatoliy Piskulin (URS)	16.82	Keith Connor (GBR)	16.53	Aleksandr Yakovlev (URS)	16.47
Shot put details	Reijo Ståhlberg (FIN)	20.48	Władysław Komar (POL)	20.16	Geoff Capes (GBR)	20.11

Women

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
60 metres details	Marlies Oelsner (GDR)	7.12 CR	Linda Haglund (SWE)	7.18 NR	Lyudmila Storozhkova (URS)	7.27
400 metres details	Marina Sidorova (URS)	52.42	Rita Bottiglieri (ITA)	53.18	Karoline Käfer (AUT)	53.56
800 metres details	Ulrike Bruns (GDR)	2:02.3a	Totka Petrova (BUL)	2:02.5a	Mariana Suman (ROM)	2:03.4a
1500 metres details	Ileana Silai (ROM)	4:07.1a CR	Natalia Mărășescu (ROM)	4:07.4a	Brigitte Kraus (FRG)	4:07.6a
60 metres hurdles details	Johanna Klier (GDR)	7.94 CR	Grażyna Rabsztyn (POL)	8.07	Silvia Kempin (FRG)	8.15
High jump details	Sara Simeoni (ITA)	1.94 CR	Brigitte Holzapfel (FRG)	1.91	Urszula Kielan (POL)	1.88
Long jump details	Jarmila Nygrýnová (TCH)	6.62	Ildikó Erdélyi (HUN)	6.49	Sue Reeve (GBR)	6.48
Shot put details	Helena Fibingerová (TCH)	20.67	Margitta Droese (GDR)	19.77	Eva Wilms (FRG)	19.24

Medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	East Germany (GDR)	4	3	2	9
2	Soviet Union (URS)	4	2	6	12
3	Finland (FIN)	3	0	0	3
4	Italy (ITA)	2	1	1	4
5	Czechoslovakia (TCH)	2	0	0	2
6	Poland (POL)	1	3	1	5
7	Romania (ROU)	1	1	1	3
8	Hungary (HUN)	1	1	0	2
9	Switzerland (SUI)	1	0	0	1
10	West Germany (FRG)	0	2	4	6
11	Belgium (BEL)	0	2	0	2
	Bulgaria (BUL)	0	2	0	2
13	Great Britain (GBR)	0	1	2	3
14	Sweden (SWE)	0	1	0	1
15	Austria (AUT)	0	0	1	1
	France (FRA)	0	0	1	1
Totals (16 entries)		19	19	19	57

Participating nations