Greece is headed towards bankruptcy specifically because of the “social benefits” Sarkozy was brought to power because of the 18% unemployment in France as a result of the “social order” and England has high unemployment and a NHS(National Healthcare System) that makes it illegal to give Dialysis to people over the age of 70 to maintain solvency.
Yes the E.U as a whole has lower unemployment because certain small countries such as the ones you mentioned bring down the average of all of them.
However lets if you look at there economies it is possible to do what they do simply because they take advantage of their Natural Resources ( something we in the U.S.A do not do) and are extremly small countries, in fact the smaller then many States. The larger the population the higher the bill.
Let me explain.
Lets say Bill Gates is generates @ Billion dollar a year.
You then tax that at 50% generating a 1 Billion dollar amount.
That 1 Billion dollars can cover lets say 10 thousand peoples social benefits that they get from his work.
IF the population is 10 thousand people they are completley covered.
However the U.S.A has 300 million people ( not counting illegal immingrants) hence to compare it to Norway is foolish.
Then again we do not need to compare.
We have the begining of the end of the USA as we speak.
California with a bigger economy then any you mentioned is insolvent followed by Michigan with a disaster rivaling the Great Depression and New York on its heals.