The EU is not leading anything. They may as well just commit to becoming a subsistence agricultural society with EPCOT heirlooms on display.

If the rest of the world follows them on regulations they've thought through before anyone else, then I don't know what you would call that other than leading? Like, definitionally that's what leading is.

It's interesting you're so derisive of actual, pragmatic leadership, of y'know deciding how we as a society will relate to new technologies - not just unthinkingly building gadgets.