A grocery store I shopped at in Italy kept their eggs in little cardboard containers on a shelf next to the jellies and preserves. I never saw them refrigerated.
When you live in the country in a place without electricity and without running water, you do not refrigerate the eggs. To determine whether or not an egg has gone bad on you in a couple of weeks, you put the egg in a pan of water. If the egg sinks to the bottom of the pan, its probably going to be a good egg. If the egg floats in the water, it is a bad egg. The rotting egg produces gas inside the egg that causes the egg to float.
I don’t think that they clean eggs off, in Europe; so they still have a natural coating that allows for keeping them at room temp.
In the US, when we buy eggs at the grocery store, that coating has been cleaned off, and we have to keep the eggs refrigerated.
Please correct me if I’m wrong; and thanks for the ‘ping’ to this thread.
-JT