Necessity To Regulate/Control Things: The EU

At various times in the past 30 years....living in Europe....I've noted the EU determination to regulate/control things...in a stupid way.

Three examples:

The Banana curvature standard: The EU (in 1995) enforced strict guidelines requiring bananas to be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature." 

Why?  Well...to ensure uniformity for trade and packaging.  This lead onto discussions...where you had perfectly good bananas being dumped...if they were deemed too bendy. This was around for 13 years until the public started to openly discuss it.

Then we had  the bottled water hydration problem.

EU regulators made a rule that there was NOT insufficient evidence to claim drinking water prevents dehydration, so they prohibited bottled water companies from advertising or labeling their products as hydrating.

This occurred back in 2011, and still remains in effect today.

Finally, the vacuum cleaner power limits.  In a effort to promote energy efficiency, the EU capped the max power of vacuum cleaners at 900 watts.

This was back in 2014.

They gave notice far enough ahead....that you could buy 1200/1500 watt vacuums....with some folks still using their max-power units even today.

At some point in the next ten years....I expect a drug-treatment coming out...to improve your IQ level by 20 points....to which the EU will likely come to regulate/control the IQ-drug....where only a limited number of people can receive the drug.  The response when asked why regulate?  Well....we don't want too many high IQ folks around.