You have to be careful when saying "Europe".

Yes, some countries do have bizarre rules. When I worked in France, we couldn't go into the office at the weekend because the whole site was shut down with only security present. We used to hire a hotel conference room instead and work there.

In England it's completely different. Other EU countries may be the same. Typically, whenever some backing EU treaty gets created, sane countries negotiate an "opt out" and ignore it.