The lack of investment in strategic infrastructure, the lack of public expenses, and the mostly monolithic neoliberal economic politics bring them to this situation.
At one point, you need to invest public money in the infrastructure that work for the day-to-day life of everyone. In this case, we speak about the railway network. Europe can't be car centric like the US. The geography and the urbanism of European towns and cities don't allow this perspective.
This has implication on the job market as poorer can't afford a job. The neoliberal politics targeting the social welfare make people poorer and this had influences on the consumption and the economy. It's of course more complicated than this. But, it gives an idea of the situation.
Why invest in infrastructure when Germany and most of the EU has terminal demographics and poor energy policy? If anything they did the next generation a solid by not weighing them down with excessive infrastructure.