Which European languages don't have compound verb tenses? All of the four I'm reasonably familiar with do. Germanic languages lean on them more than Romance languages (which have a wider breadth of non-complex tenses), but the concept isn't unfamiliar. Again, aside from the gerund, there's an almost one-to-one mapping in usage between English and German tenses. I don't speak any other Germanic languages than those two, but I'd assume that to be more broadly true in that family.
I have the impression that English compound tenses and their nuances are harder than other European languages', although other languages definitely do have them.
I eat breakfast
I am eating breakfast
I ate breakfast
I was eating breakfast
I have eaten breakfast
I have been eating breakfast
I had eaten breakfast
I had been eating breakfast
I would eat breakfast
I would be eating breakfast
I would have eaten breakfast
I would have been eating breakfast
I will eat breakfast
I am going to eat breakfast
I will be eating breakfast
I am going to be eating breakfast
I will have eaten breakfast
I am going to have eaten breakfast
I can't think of another European language that would idiomatically use (or maybe even require) quite this range of constructions.
