as I explained in the past, it's all about politics.
there are 2 pathways to follow: first, these Games have always been felt like the Russian garden, their way to show their sport muscles to the Continent they would like to be part of, but never wanted them.
second, all the officials of the various European sports Federations have always seen these Games like a huge threat to their power and to their "regular" Continental Champs.
therefore they choose to boycott in every possible way the EGs development, especially in the Western Countries (that have been heavily joked by the organizers in the past, including only sports where the Eastern block could easily dominate the Western rivals with fair but also with unfair judges left and right).
they even came up with the idea of an opposing event like the unified Europeans, which almost immediately show all of their limits however.
imho, there's no place in Europe for a big event like this.
too many expenses (especially in these very difficult years, thanks to the crazy, idiotic politics of the EU) and too little income because of the lack of interest for all the socalled "minor disciplines" in most of the "supposed" rich Western Countries, where all the attention and all the money go to the mainstream sports like Football, Tennis, Motorsports, maybe Basketball (but only in a few Nations).
there's no way to earn a single penny focusing on things like Fencing, Canoeing and so on.