“Actually, being an electrician I have to agree with the decline of the halogen.”
What you say is quite true, youngmaf. But that is not the point.
I have two large light fittings (which take four bulbs each) for which I cannot now buy bulbs. The complications (and more importantly the restrictions) surrounding light bulbs has been reduced to an absolute farce and this is a direct result of EU legislation. Among your biggest wasters of energy you have not mentioned large shops who leave their doors wide open in January and run 25Kw worth of “curtain” heaters to heat the street for ten hours a day. It takes a lot of 60w incandescent light bulbs to compensate for that lunacy. A bit of legislation to curb that may produce more benefits.
The demise of old style light bulbs was not a fuss about nothing. I have some of the “new” efforts and they are useless. I have to make an appointment to go up my stairs because by the time they reach a decent level of light I have climbed the stairs, forgot what I went there for and returned downstairs. Consequently I tend to leave my lights on all the time thus saving me nothing and adding to the planet’s alleged woes.
But even this is beside the point so I will return to the thrust of retro’s question. All of these matters should be determined by the Westminster Parliament. This has nothing to do with the single market. It is simply another example of the EU lauding it over the population and imposing their ideologies on 500 million people who have virtually no control over their activities. If the majority of people in the UK are happy with that I’ll go along with it. But we’ve never been asked. (Please don’t mention the 1975 referendum because that related to a completely different animal to that which the EU is today).
“What is crazy about wanting to save power?”
Nothing at all. It makes perfect sense. But, as above, if the choice whether or not to do so is to be removed from the UK electorate it should only be removed by the Westminster Parliament. It’s not the issues, it is the principle upon which the issues are decided.