I don't think there's a single reason why European countries in general aren't always as competitive and/or developed as they could be. In the case of Italy, t

I don't think there's a single reason why European countries in general aren't always as competitive and/or developed as they could be. In the case of Italy, there's an absolutely massive north-south divide, the total breakdown of the political system in the 90s followed by a succession of mostly awful (and short-lived) governments, a general skepticism towards the common good and, in the South, the Mafia. In the case of Spain, it used to be a dictatorship until the 70s and there's still tension between the various language communities. I don't know enough about France, but it probably has its fair share of issues as well. Common to the EU as a whole is a lack of a common language (an app in English or Chinese can just naturally target a much wider audience), the Euro crisis (and austerity politics), the current energy crisis, the migration crisis, etc. Also, almost all European countries and especially their democracies are really young compared to the US. And yes, I do think that there's also a fair share of Europeans that are just complacent and think that the good days will last forever, but I'm not sure that's the biggest factor.