EU restricts free trade
Where does the EU get off assisting price fixing and cartels in this way?
Item X is officially for sale in the UK for (say) £100.
It sells somewhere else for (say) £50.
It can be shipped to the UK for £10, profit of £20 taken and hit the streets for £80-£90.
So it is possible for a distributor to legally buy and ship stuff to the UK and challenge the "official" channel. This is GOOD! This is a free market. This is keeping prices down etc etc.
But no. The EU would rather see price fixing enshrined in law. Arseholes.
If a company is so monumentally stupid as to threaten their own business by having huge, regional price disparities (remember CD-Wow?) then that is their own problem, not the EU's. If price is one way a product is marked out as being "luxury", and that price is based on need (material, skilled manufacturing etc.) then again it does not need protection as no one can compete at a lower price point. If, however, it is just cheap crap sold for a high price, the EU has no business in supporting that ridiculous and anti-consumer business model.