London’s West End, home to some of the world’s most cramped theatre seats, is facing a European Union directive to give the audience more room…The seating sub-committee of the EU standardisation committee is set to introduce the measure this year.
(The Sunday Times, p7, 20 February 2000)

The European Standardisation Committee (CEN) is a voluntary body made up of national standards agencies and affiliated industry/consumer organisations from nineteen European countries. It has nothing to do with the EU. The EU is not involved in setting theatre seat standards.