One of the other factors preventing people from starting small businesses is lack of affordable health insurance. They can buy coverage through state exchanges but those are still more expensive that group health plans offered by large employers.
Starting a small business is hard in some European countries but not others. Here in Sweden it is trivial. In e.g. Malta and I believe Poland it is hard.
Personally I am not sure any of this discussion is relevant to Europe, especially not as a whole.
