I’m a European and if you’d ask me without any context I’d not think of the geographical term which includes chunks of Russia. I’d initially take it as a synonym for the EU and associated states. So YMMV.

Yes but European is not, please don't be obtuse. You don't stop being European when you leave Europe, and you don't magically become a European the moment you get off an airplane onto the subcontinent.

This entire thread is a response to a claim about Europeans, and I took pains to draw out that distinction. Yet here you are talking about Europe. Why?