It seems intuitively wrong that hoovers across the EU use more power than the whole of Denmark, and produce more emissions than washing machines and dishwashers.
Denmark is a little country with a population lower than London - your intuition is failing. Heating water to wash things requires a lot of energy. The other point never considered in these bullshit justifications is for half the year heat not produced by a vacuum cleaner will be replaced by central heating systems.
It seems intuitively wrong
This at a time when other household devices have been becoming more efficient (eg computers are drastically more efficient than 15 years ago) hoovers have been getting worse by 2.5% PA.
Power consumption is not a measure of efficiency. Look at their numbers another way and vacuum cleaner usage in the EU consumes 1.27 trillion man hours which is about 256 times more than that available from the entire Danish workforce. What a terrible waste of human life the equivalent of 1.8 million 80 year lifetimes annually.
The efficiency I want from a vacuum cleaner is measured by how long I need to spend using it and an hour of my life is worth a crap load more than a unit of electricity.
Eco green tossers are happy for us to sacrifice our lives on the alter of eco green tosserness. They would prefer us to use brooms.
The EU gave an army of unelected bureaucrats and barely elected politicians the power to make it happen.