> To be fair, 35 hours in qualified jobs is really rare and this limit is only working for jobs that are paid hourly (when your employer counts the number of hours you work to determine your pay).

Almost all white collar jobs in the UK are 35 hours

> The vast majority of those jobs are paid monthly and, even if legal maximums exists, they rarely matter since, by definition, in monthly paid jobs, hours are not counted.

35 hours is the expected salaried agreement, similar to 40 hours in the US. I expect most of Europe is 35 hours and that is protected by labor laws.