I'm not European; I come from a tropical island country that is also in love with air-conditioning. I dislike it and prefer natural cool air.

At home, it recycles stale, dry air. In urban settings, air-conditioners pump hotter air into the (already) sizzling outside. There are better implementations like district cooling with cold water, but this will require ripping out every single split-aircon unit from every single flat and replacing the ducting, the cooling units, and even the controls.