Over four days at the Estadio Vallehermoso in the Spanish capital, teams from 16 nations competed in all track and field disciplines, with one male and one female athlete from each country taking part.
Winning an event earned your team 16 points, 15 for coming second, right down to one point for a last-place finish. The team with the most points would be crowned as champions, but the three teams with the fewest points faced relegation to the second division.
On the final day of competition on Sunday, Finland took their sole 16-point event win of the event, as Ilona Mononen won the women's 3000m steeplechase in a time of 9:49.21, edging Great Britain's Sarah Tait by three hundredths of a second.
However, that would be too little too late for the Finnish team, who were relegated with a 15th-place finish and a total of 220.5 points, 22 points behind Hungary, who finished outside the drop zone in 13th.
Second place for Silja Kosonen in the women's hammer throw would be Finland's only other top three result across the event.
The Finns went down alongside Ukraine and Lithuania - all three will compete in the Second Division in the 2027 European Team Championships. Italy were crowned as champions again, following up from their 2023 triumph.