[welterde]

I personally wouldn't call that incredibly permissive, but just natural scatter due to differences in definitions, but in practice you are correct - only a couple countries in EU have similar time frames in the end. At least if there are no medical reasons or other things at work, then mostly later is allowed as well.

Not sure what you mean removing all ties to past racial discrimination. But having a look at the bad parts of history is not that an outrageous thing in Europe - at least not in Germany.