With the operator it's the same here. You always have to pay for full 3 minutes, and I don't know how much.
I don't like that either, especially in case of loose connections, when you have no idea where that splice exactly is and have to trace the whole wire by ripping up the entire wall. However, sometimes it's the same with j-boxes. The covers are often under so many layers of wallpaper and sometimes even a thin layer of plaster that you'd never find them. Sometimes they even are in the next room.
With the combo devices it's the exact opposite here. Combo devices that usually fit a single-gang box are horrendously expensive, so if any possible you avoid using them. Standard are modular frame wall plates where you can fit in almost everything, like switches, receptacles, phone jacks, TV jacks, Network jacks, ...
You just buy a 1, 2, 3 or 4-gang frame and the inserts that already come with the covers and screws. Frames and inserts have to be from the same manufacturer, except for some cheap imitations that fit the original. For example at Baumax (like Home Depot) you get the E-Tronics series that are imitations of the Kopp series and can be mixed. The boxes are all the same, either single, 2 and 3-gang or gangable. The biggest frames available are for 4-gang boxes.
0.75 sq mm wires are not permitted for fixed work here either, but the wires I'm talking of are at least 30 years old and probably have never been in code. Standard wire here is 1.5 sq mm rated for 16A.
Another nice thing about these rooms: All that stuff is fused for 16A. A licensed electrician did that 10 years ago. I first got suspicious when I hooked up a 150 W computer and a 60 W light to one of these receptacles and the lamp always got darker when the computer was switched on. i opened the receptacle and found 1.5 sq mm Romex. Then I traced it back to the next j-box. 0.75 sq mm single wires. Nice!
Schuko plugs and sockets: I have nothing against them, only they're a little bit big. We don't think much about polarization here, except for DC. I found an old book which stated that in ceiling light sockets the black wire has always to be connected to the bottom of the socket, the gray one to the screwshell.
However, that does't apply to modern sockets.
Older receptacles were nearly flat, with a 5 mm depp round hole that prevnted things getting between socket and plug, plugs were round with 2 prongs slightly thinner than the new ones. You can easily put a Schuko plug in one of those receptacles. Then there are special plugs for higher currents and for 3-phase. They look almost the same, only size, colour and number of prongs are different. 3-phase plugs are gray-red or yellow-red, fairly big and have five prongs. (3 phases, Neutral, ground). they're fairly common, for table saws, air compressors, farm equipment and most construction equipment like concrete mixers and that stuff.
Another nice story about that appartment and our licensed electricians: There were 2 journeymen working. one wired a junction box. he only twisted and taped (forbidden, you have to use block connectors everywhere). When the the other one saw that he asked him what he was doing. He said "Why not? It had benn that way before!" This in broadest viennese with yugoslavian elements. "Wieso? Des woa ollaweu so!"
So much about qualified work around here.
