My impression is that EU countries have annoyingly too much regulation for businesses and tend to afford individuals much more freedom than people have in the US. In the US, it seems to be the other way around.
Courts within Civil Law systems are there just to interpret and enforce the law, not to create it. What individual courts decide is not binding on anyone but the involved parties.
Avdi's overanalyzing it. Everybody's simply using the word to mean `enthusiastic` these days. And I don't think it's the primary things companies want -- they definitely want to appear enthusiastic/passionate about their products to their customers (cuz enthusiasm sells if customers can't truly assess the quality of what they're getting), but as long as their employees are doing a great job on the inside of the company, who cares if they're super passionate/enthusiastic. It's the job of the sales people to put the passion gloss on the final product. Enthusiasm on the inside doesn't even necessarily mean `better work results`. Enthusiasm pushes you farther but it won't magically make up for lack of skills.