> EU enshrined privacy in its charter of fundamental rights. GDPR was and still is a major protection.

GDPR does not protect you from governments snooping on you. The same way it does not stop governments from collecting data on you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

It sometimes even forces governments to collect more data on their own citizens like in Romania.

The only difference between the US and the EU is that the EU has somehow managed to convince a bunch of useful idiots (not saying that you are part of it) that it is better than the US when in reality its the same shit just with a different color and smell.