[Effendi]

Snaimon, European mobile rates are higher than US ones because you don't pay when you receive calls. Anyway, your operator gets some money when someone calls you, thanks to the termination fee, which is usually different from carrier to carrier.
I can explain the situation in Italy, I think in Germany or France it's pretty the same.

The Government sets some termination fees for the operators with high penetration in the number of users; i.e. TIM and Vodafone have a lower termination fee than Wind, while 3, the last arrived, has no obbligations in terms of termination fee, and in fact they have the highest one (I think more than 15 ?cent/min).
In Italy we still have very high termination fee, that's also why many operators have "autorecharge" tariffs so the more you receive, the more you get money on your prepaid! That's quite a typical Italian thing, in other countries it doesn't happen often, but if I'm not wrong O2 Germany has something similar on their Loop prepaid.