It is not healthy for the EU where the average worker can no longer afford to buy domestic production because 1) the average prices are much higher than in the US, and 2) the average income is much lower in the US. And this gap has been increasing with time. By most American standards, the EU folks live in near poverty, while at one time they use to have genuine parity with Americans.
So no, the Europeans have not maintained the health of their economies at all. They've managed to destroy them and make the reasonably well-off in their countries the equivalent of the lower-middle class in the US. And they did this by "protecting" their economy, as you would have us do. If that is the kind of "prosperity" you want, you can keep it. Nobody has ever done well by doing what the Europeans do, including the Europeans.
Protectionism of that kind is playing with a weak hand that eventually sucks the life out of a country. The US has a robust hand and we should be playing an offensive economic game -- we can afford it.
Since the UE is not an exporting economy its products are consumed domestically. I am surprised to learn that Europeans live in poverty, last I heard Western Europe was doing well. I have family in Germany and they tell me they are doing well. So I think you must be mistaken.