Where is "in Europe" in your case? There are around 50 countries, each with their own laws. In Finland, you don't get ANY vacation days until the next time April 1st rolls around. And then, the number of days you get is heavily reduced if you haven't worked the entire year from April-April. Why is it like that? Who the hell knows. Oh yeah, if you take 5 days off, it counts as 6 days. So you essentially have 5/6 of the days that are promised to you on paper.