Where in Europe is it mandated by law that someone take a week off every two months?

A week every two months is of course kinda extreme. But for example in my country, it's required to take 2 weeks vacations in one go every year. Another 2 weeks (or 10 work days) can be taken at employee and company discretion.

I never heard about a company/employee fined for not taking (as in, employee refusing, not company denying) vacations. It's quite frequent in small companies and/or in higher ranks actually. But theoretically it's just another labour code offense.

However, most companies have an unwritten rule to use up vacation days during the year and don't accumulate them. Unused vacations pay is due on the day of resignation. Nobody wants someone to go 10 years without vacation and then pay them nearly an annual salary in one go.

Well, not exactly the same but here in France for example we have 5 weeks holiday per year plus n days extra to compensate for the maximum number of days I am allowed to work per year (219). n is variable because of official holidays and is 7 for me this year. The summer holidays are 2 weeks minimum..... by law.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. In Poland it is similar: you have 26 vacation days and you have to use them all, with at least one two weeks in one go. Employer can be fined if employees don't use all of their vacation days.

Add 5-7 days of bank holidays on top of that and average Polish employee has at least two or three vacation periods per year.

My own, single data point from this year:

one week vacations in February (skiing),

5 days in April (Easter + 2 vacation days),

one week beginning of May (two bank holidays one day apart + 3 vacation days),

two weeks in August,

one week planned for Christmas (requiring only 3 vacation days).

Fairy typical schedule in my country.

What do you think of two years paid maternal leave? By law. . .

That's not really considered vacation so I'm not sure what that has to do with this proposal, honestly.

Implying everyone in Europe has a good work life balance!

Some are pushed to their limits every day for a meager wage most of us wouldn't leave the bed for.

Seriously. I could take years off between jobs if I wanted to because my salary in Canada is so much higher than it would be in Europe. I consider that much better than 5 weeks a year or whatever.

How is that specific to Europe? Don't you have the same "some" anywhere else?

Certainly. He mentioned Europe specifically though.