It seems to me, that in Western Europe the smaller countries have been more on the ball so to speak. They have been more active in changing policy to address futural challenges while the larger countries seems to act only when forced to. I.e. the demographic change the next decades will bring with regards to a larger share of the population too old to work, is more or less addressed and solved in some of the smaller countries (in Norway it took a 15 year long debate to reach a sustainable compromise) while the larger countries seem to act too late (I predict this as the next big France/Germany-problem).
What causes this, I don't know. It becomes just speculation from my side, but a personal theory I have, is that in the smaller countries the distance between the population and the politicians is shorter, and thus the politicians are more trusted, and can implement policy changes that are unpopular at the time.
About the pork part, I don't know. There is considerable pork in Norway and Sweden too. One of the examples (this is really insane):
Our bridge to nowhere