Can I get a provisional patent in Europe?

A US provisional patent is nothing more than a place-holder for a later 'real' patent application (which should follow within a year from filing of the provisional application. The provisional application then automatically ends at the end of this priority year.

In Europe the same thing can be done, except that in this case the priority forming application is just a real application that could develop into a patent. You may end it after one year, but you do not need to.

The advantage of the European system is that you can file this first priority application without paying any fees (and in any language). In the US filing of a provisional still would cost you a small amount.
Further, but then you have to pay the European filing fee and search fee, you may obtain a novelty search from the European Patent Office in the priority year. This is something that you will not be able to get with the US provisional application.

Both the US provisional patent application and the European priority application should be drafted with the utmost care. It is of no use to file incomplete or sloppy applications. The reason for this is that this first application acts as a priority application, meaning that a later application can claim the priority date of filing (for establishing novelty and non-obviousness) if - and only if - the claimed subject matter was already contained in the priority application. In Europe this criterium is taken very strictly and in general the claim on priority is only deemed valid if the priority application would contain the identical wording as the claimed matter in the 'real' application.