In the beginning, the ESA decided to divide the space program into the Ariane launcher and the Spacelab Module. A Space tug was also planned but NASA said no.
Luckily, Europe had the Ariane programme!
Spacelab was considerably delayed, flown once for free (with only one ESA astronaut) and then the ESA gave it to NASA. Not many were pleased by this kind of deal. Germany built another Spacelab module, flew it twice and that was all. Europe wasn't very pleased by this dependancy to the Shuttle.
After Challenger, Hermes became a vehicle for only 3 astronauts (and ejection seats) and it slowly died.
But we have deals with the Russians and it's working fine.

Raoul