I think the issue is how European directives are implemented at the national level. There’s no real/effective way to directly protest a European directive as a citizen, the best that you can do is to protest against the implementation of such directive by your national government. The problem is that:

• except for rare occasions, in Europe is far less common than in the US or Canada to protest against governments. Citizens are way less invested in the political life of their country, I guess.
• National governments can always say: “it’s a European directive, there’s nothing we can do about it”
• National governments can always say: “all the other member states are implementing it, so there’s no reason for us not to do it”