I think the crux on the vacuums was that people thought: more powerful is better, but they don’t actually vacuum better. (Physics: the max pressure difference from room to vacuum is about 1 bar. Given a certain gap between the vacuum and the floor, the marginal benefit of a 3kW vacuum over a 1kW one is small)

But buying psychology just promotes inefficient vacuums at that point, so it could make sense for the regulator to try and fix that. (From an environmental perspective I agree with this one)

Note: I’m not even sure if the EU even legislated this at all. Turns out, a lot of so called EU regulations bashed by the UK tabloids were represented overly simplified to fit a desired narrative.

E.g. here is Wikipedia on how both sides used the regulation on food to ridicule and defense the EU:

> This regulation requires that bananas as a minimum standard must not have "abnormal curvature",[5] although no definition or guidance was given about the degree of curvature that would be regarded as "abnormal". This led to various stories about an EU ban on curved bananas.[6] This has been frequently repeated by pro-Europeans and Euro-sceptics alike; the former tending to regard it as an apocryphal or misleading Euromyth[6] and the latter regarding it as an example of needless European bureaucracy.

Link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_Regulation_(EC)_N...