People can do a lot of amazing stuff if their hands aren't bound.
I remember reading a German's enterpreneurs lament about wanting to lay a single electrical cable between his two nearby buildings. The paperwork demanded by German authorities dragged for half a year. He said that a similar work in Poland was papered through in two weeks.
Or, as a friend of mine in Prague quipped: "We want to build traffic lights. We need 28 stamps, including one from a forest management service. The closest forest is 5 km away (3 miles) from said intersection, but they still need to confirm their approval."
The Baltics are comparatively lean in this regard and it shows.