You probably did not have to. Your employer could have simply paid you for your remaining days.

> and wanted to take much more/longer in 2025.

Again, you can do that. You can actually transfer your free days from year to year. This is not something the EU forbids so it may be dependent on how your country does it.

> Reasons like this are why EU is on a free fall.

It seems that the reason why EU is in a free fall, according to you, is your lack of understanding how things work.