> You would be shocked at how well certain nationalities like the Dutch and Swedes speak English.

Totally. All Northern countries to be fair. And then in my experience at least some Eastern countries (like Slovenia).

Really it seems like the South of Europe is a bit weaker in English, my guess being that their native languages are latin and not germanic (so it's further away from English).

It's because we don't do dubbing but subtitling. Every foreign TV show or movie becomes a mini language class.

The bigger countries do dubbing and it is really noticeable.

Also in Holland we'd pride ourselves on speaking foreign languages much more than being proud of our own.