Most of the benefits of credit card networks don't apply in the EU. Like the purchase insurance and easy chargeback are not easy at all here. My bank stopped the insurance a few years ago.

I think it's just that they don't make any money (their profits mainly evolve around interest and late fees), as mostly everyone here pays their CC bill on time and has only one card. There's also hardly any loyalty programs to speak of. I've never seen anyone do cashbacks and with the loyalty points you'll be lucky to get a towel set a year :P The whole situation is very different from the US.

Most people only even have the debit version of the card but even for the credit version it's like this. I still have both because some US companies don't accept the debit version of my card. Though it's becoming much less of a problem and I haven't used the card in years, will probably cancel it as it counts as an active loan.