In this paper the authors present the levels of Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) across 16 Member States of the European Union participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM - 2004 research 2). They also compare the average TEA rate for these 16 EU-countries participating in GEM with the average for some other OECD-countries, further referred to as 'Anglo'-countries: the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Next, they relate the striking differences in TEA across countries to underlying cultural and institutional differences. And also they examine some other current issues associated with entrepreneurial activity in Europe, such as ageing of the population, and technology-based start-ups.