> Maybe they should have bit the bullet and fully redesigned the 737.
If I were the EU regulator, I would have forced them to... It's a great way to screw over Boeing (American) and boost sales for Airbus (EU), while having the fairly legit rationale that you no longer have confidence in the US regulator due to a long series of blunders, and you are not happy for a major new plane design to use a decades old type rating (and is therefore missing now-mandatory safety stuff).