imho the biggest issue is structural - that investment and capital is spread out. Having tried to launch a startup in the EU and failed due to lack of access to capital, we could have moved to hamburg or berlin or london or paris, but not a place bigger than all of them at once the way a startup can in the us moving to san fran or NY.

Such concentration of wealth couldn't exist in the EU, its structurally designed to spread out wealth amongst its member nations. Probably a good thing for quality of life but it definately makes access to capital harder.