It's not in some places. You can easily get by in Stockholm, and to some extent Berlin, with just English. Then learn the local language gradually if you stay there. In fact it can be difficult to speak the native language as people will talk to you in English as soon as they realize you're not native.

I've actually had a harder time conversing with people in some parts of Scotland by phone, due to our different accents, than in some parts of Europe. Even though we both speak English as a first language. The UK can have bigger internal differences than the rest of the English speaking world.

Some of this is down to the international (US) English used in non-native English speaking places. I had to write my book on ASP.NET Core in American English, which took some getting used to. :)