I would posit that many EU citizens are still living with the idea of their historic economic outperformance even though it has not been true for many years.

It depends on the means of production (Marx had the point). One thing is if you want to open a factory, then those regulations and limitations may protect the market, consumers and reduce fraud. If you want to start a software company and sell a smartphone app, that's a very different story. I assume Germany is still in 19th century in this regard, favoring big businesses who don't mind to wait 152 days or more and pay 10K. Modern economy, or at least a big part of it, is more about agility though, for good or for bad.