Unfortunately the Europa acquired a bad reputation in its early days. Several factors contributed. The build process was long and builders, usually trained on nose wheel types often lacked currency. The early Europa Classics, short tailwheel hard linked to the rudder, 80hp and fixed pitch prop had particular challenges.
If you operated from grass and more or less into wind, you might wonder what all the fuss was about. On an imperfect hard surface and a significant left hand crosswind, it was a real handful. While the tailwheel was on the ground, yaw control was positive and very sensitive. When the tail lifted, all the difficult bits happened together. A sharp left yaw helped by torque effect demanded an instant large rudder input. At the same time, the stabilisers lifted and it would roll away from the wind. Without anticipation and practice, this could and did caused departures from the runway, and insurers became unhappy. Fitting the extended sprung tailwheel with conventional spring connection to the rudder and a constant speed prop all helped considerably.
Once airborne, you could enjoy the beautifully harmonised sensitive controls, 120kt cruise and 15 litres/hr provided you weren't too tall.
The landing also had its challenges. In a crosswind, the wing down technique was not an option due to the stabilisers, neither was a landing on the main wheel first as the suspension was very stiff, and the slightest bump caused fore and aft pitching onto the tailwheel. You had to synchronise yawing it straight exactly to the moment that it touched down on main and tailwheel together and with the rudder then centred. Unfortunately, due to the shallow ground angle and the noticeable ground effect from the low wing and flaps, the wings were still flying until the speed dropped a lot so it was easy to get bounced back into the air going sideways. Also the hard tailwheel tended hop off the ground on hard surfaces leading to another sharp yaw. Again, the extended sprung tailwheel made life easier at the expense of an even shallower ground angle and some fore and aft bucketing on rough surfaces.
The nose wheel undercarriage solves the handling problems on takeoffs and landings at he expense of about 8kt loss of cruise speed or greater fuel consumption. The smaller wheels are less ideal on grass and there is a bit of fore and aft pitching due to the short wheelbase.
I have to say that I was more wary of crosswinds on the original Europas than on almost any other tailwheel type that I have flown, and converting people to them was a rather nervous business as things could go wrong very quickly.