Yeah, especially when you consider the common pattern of protectionism in the various intra-EU disputes between member countries over recent years, my perception is that in the EU this is the default hammer that governments reach for. It seems there's always a lot of anxiety about which country a product comes from.

I have been in the EU for almost the past three months and noticed retail staff really push domestically produced products over something from another EU country. In France a lady literally took the German hair product I was asking about out of my hand, put it back on the shelf, handed me a different one and simply said "this one is made in France".