Chances are Nokia would have been a great competitor. Have you seen Nokia N9? It was in my opinion ahead of both iOS and Android at the time. But it was killed and replaced with Windows Phone.
Apple and Android didn't make Nokia irrelevant. Nokia made bad decisions and chose the losing player. After which said losing player gutted it.
Nokia had the might to a) build their own great OS, and b) continue to be a market leader. But when you have management making bad decisions, this is all you get. Whether you're in the EU or in the US, doesn't matter.
It is irelevant to the present that Nokia was a big player in the past. The fact that I was a top student in high-scool is irelevant to my current job where I underperform.
Nokia is now a shadow a its former self both in money it brings to the EU economy and in the amount of tech jobs it provides.
That's what's relevant now and there's no pride in this defeat.
Did the EU build an Apple? Yes, Nokia was a dominant phone manufacturer, so it clearly did. But it made a mistake and died (like Apple almost did in the 90s).
So you moved the goal posts by claiming that somehow it dying meant that it never counted.
Nothing is forever, just because the US has been briefly dominant in a field does not make it's approach right, especially as it's pretty obvious to the whole world there's a good chance it's going to become number two soon.