Good afternoon Dead Duck -
All the information from the well-experienced drivers on here is spot on!! Just keep on trying as there is no minimum amount of experience needed to do continental work.
All I would say is don’t ignore European van driving either. Yes I know that most of it is done by our EE friends, however there are still some UK businesses which run vans on European work (albeit specialist work). They may be able to give you a good understanding of the way things work in Europe, which will be useful as you progress to C+E work.
Often , with Euro work , it is not what you know (that does help) but who you know.
Although my business does only a small amount of Euro work nowadays, two of my trucks work a lot of the time for a customer who I don’t haul for in the UK, but I do their infrequent Euro moves, and the drivers I use are not permanent members of my team - in fact one is my local publican, and the other works for British Gas in their offices. I use them because both have had valuable experience with driving specialist kit in previous job roles.
Cast your net wide, - there is Euro work about in the specialist sectors,
I hope that this is of use