This is-a very good question

[Betonov]

We Europeans like our things as poison free as possible.
While we do use pesticides and herbicides, even I do on my small garden, they are of a more eco-friendly, less efficient variety. The one I use is non-toxic to warmblooded animals and disolves in sunlight. I spray it in the evening and when the bees start doing their rounds it's already inactive.
There's something very retarded about killing the one animal that makes your produce possible That's why the strict legislature, billions of euros were lost because bees were dying.

And the legislation was forced by the general population because of this reasons, the governments would preffer not to be forced into something new they'd have to enforce and actually have people working a their job.

[Platapus]

We Americans like our profits upfront. The way our markets work, corporations collect the money before the customer is poisoned. That's a corporate win.

We have enough population that corporations feel they can can easily replace the lost future sales with new customers.

This is one of the reasons we can't rely on some corporations to self-police. Their priorities are not with the safety of their customers, but the security of their stockholders.

[Stealhead]

Weyland-Yutani.

[mapuc]

In Sweden before it became member of EU, some food colour was not allowed. That meant we who loved the Danish red sausage had to travel to Denmark or ask some one to take it with them and a colour used by almost every one-food coloring. Before we could only buy Red, Green and Yellow, Before we count buy blue and black

After 95-Sweden had to allow these things. so know we can by these Danish red sausage in the stores and we can buy blue and black and other food coloring.

Markus

[Betonov]

Sometimes certain laws are never updated and when Sweden banned the red coloring it was actually toxic, but a new kind of red coloring was invented, non toxic like the one we use today, but Sweden never lifted it's ban until the EU membership.

Make-up used to be lead and cyanide based and today they're non toxic plant and petrolium based. Yep, non toxic petrolium based make-up doesn't sound like an oxymoron. My grandfather frequented a certain spa where you could took a petrolium bath. It helped with his skin problem.

[clive bradbury]

My own stance regarding food chemicals/additives, and that tends to be the thrust of UK/EU policy, is: if it doesn't improve the food but may pose a risk - leave it out.

The US seem to have a rather old-fashioned stance, essentially letting manufacturers decide. And of course they always have the best interest of the public at heart, don't they? Hence the widespread use of antibiotics as a growth agent in US meat - banned for non-medical use in the EU since 2006.

One example which amused me a while ago. I bake my own bread, and on a baking website an American woman living in London complained that she could not find unbleached flour in the shops to bake her bread with. She was gobsmacked when I informed her that ALL EU flour has been unbleached since the 1990s, hence no need for a label. It does show, though, that at least some Americans are aware of this bad practice and are sourcing healthier flours where possible.