I wish these salaries existed for Europe
For some of these reasons, it might explain why while there is remote job in US or Canada or Mexico, there is no remote job for North America, the continent for these 3 countries. This might help explain why there isn't a remote job for Europe as it is a continent.
Haven't said this, it seems to be a great advantage for companies who can overcome the challenge and offer remote for Europe if it is an appealing offer.
The same policies that provide strong protections for employees against being terminated can serve as a barrier against those same employees being hired in the first place. Different countries have chosen different points in that regard. Netherlands is stronger than the US for employee protections, but not as strong as Germany. France offers even more protections for employees.
Employers can’t treat EU as a single country, because, well, it’s not. They have to understand the laws and usually incorporate in each country. (None of this is complaining that it ought to be some other way, but rather just observing why you don’t see typical non-giant companies offering “anywhere in EU remote” roles [and agreeing with your analogy to North America].)
Several companies have been taking this approach recently, requiring you to set up a "small one-person business" (replace with whatever it's called in your specific EU country) which is a long and costly bureaucratic process so that you can pay a shit-ton of taxes while getting less net salary than if they would just pay the taxes for you (like any other EU employer). They give you 0.75x the money they themselves would spend to employ you while covering the taxes, tell you to deal with it yourself, and wrap it in cellophane with "hey but you're saving so much on the taxes!". Of course completely ignoring that you, the employee living in your EU country, are the one who actually benefits from them.
At least the german tax office will take notice of such pseudo self-employments and act accordingly. Not a great idea.
Murdoch, famously, owns UK politics.
This is viewed negatively in general (perhaps rightly), but I think it does provide some balance between the incentives of wealth creation and workers. For example, here in the UK we'll happily regulate entire sectors of the economy out of business every year, but in the US attempts to do this would be met with huge multi-million dollar lobbying campaigns.
It's like when agitators use the comparable GDPs of Bavaria and Mississippi as a KPI indicating Europe's lack of economic prowess. In fact, it's just a scathing indictment of wealth inequality in Mississippi where life expectancy is 10 years less and infant mortality 400% higher than in Bavara, despite their similar GDPs.