Interesting that you mention Portugal here. I was born and raised there, and though not great, I don't remember it being as bad as the horror stories I'm reading about Italy from other comments.

I do not know if it is the same in other countries, but in Italy public sector has been used for decades by bad politicians for paying political favors, "if you bring me votes of you family I'll manage to find a job to your son", the result is an oversized apparatus of people that do not like their work, work badly (if they work at all) and try to spent time in order to arrive to payslip day. In Italy the bureaucracy is become a monster that try to justify its existence creating other bureaucracy. At least half of italian bureaucracy workers are redundant. And I'm not a supporter of the private sector at all.