Western Europe is a well established geographical and historical reality, and vague, a-historical concepts like "Discipline" and "Mentality" have no value, at all. Italy, France or Spain are the cradle of Western Europe, along with a bunch of other countries.

I lived in 4 different countries in continental Europe (France, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands) and while, of course, there are differences, it is staggering the quantity of shared things, in the daily life…

But we were not discussing whether those three countries were the cradles of European civilization (undisputedly so) but what Western Europe is in contemporary times.

No amount of calling bullshit is going to change the fact that Spain and Italy are mired by corruption scandals. The root cause of that is the mentality, the way of thinking, and lack of discipline: "to hell with everyone else as long as I have plenty to eat, guzzle, and screw". The results speak for themselves. For instance, what is the unemployment rate in Spain, especially among the younger generation? Why?

I am sorry for you, you are just thinking along stereotypes here. That's way of thinking says much more about you than it doesn't say about reality...

> No amount of calling bullshit is going to change the fact that Spain and Italy are mired by corruption scandals.

Germany, for example, in the last years has been known for VW, Deutsche Bank and Siemens scandals, showing links between corrupt business and political power. BER international airport is another example, and there are countless of other examples. And those were huge examples of corruption. Corruption is a systemic problem, and thinking that in central Europe there is no corruption is just a very dangerous mindset.

> "to hell with everyone else as long as I have plenty to eat, guzzle, and screw".

...

> The results speak for themselves. For instance, what is the unemployment rate in Spain, especially among the younger generation? Why?

The reasons are complex, Spain no more than 10 years ago showed fantastic grow rates, very low public debt, very low unemployment. Essentializing the problems of Spain as a problem of "mentality" just shows ignorance.

> Germany, for example, in the last years has been known for VW, Deutsche Bank and Siemens scandals,

In Germany, the courts function and there will be consequences. In Italy or Spain, not so much.

And the more you write, the more you define yourself

I'm from an excluded from this definition country too.

It's not about wanting your home country to be part of "Western Europe", or whether it was its cradle, or whether it is "worth" it to be.

It's about whether it fits certain modern socio-economic criteria for a SPECIFIC definition of western europe.

To quote Wikipedia:

"Western Europe is the region comprising the western part of the European continent. There may be differences between the geopolitical and purely geographic definitions of the term."

Check: United Nations Statistics Division geoscheme for Western Europe (hint: no Italy).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe#Modern_division...

Or others...

What has to do your answer with the things the OP was writing?