If you're relying on the supplier / manufacturer to provide origin info, it's presumably more reliable if they have an incentive to tell you to tag their products so they get more sales, rather than them telling you to tag their products to reduce their sales. This applies especially to products where the origin might be a little blurry.

From a usability perspective, there isn't really any difference between the two. And since this isn't mandated by law yet, some shops might not tag their stuff at all, or might not ask their suppliers and only tag those whose suppliers actually volunteer the info. There's a whole bunch of scenarios, but you get the gist.

I do agree, it's unfortunate this ended up being 'Buy Europe' instead of 'Avoid certain countries', but it is what it is now. I guess the problem with 'Avoid certain countries' is nobody can agree on which countries exactly should be avoided. 'Buy Europe' sidesteps a lot of those complications.

I think it doesn’t matter if there’s a national flag on a product which is sold all over Europe. I believe people know which flag is European flag anyway. Or there might be both flags?