The outcome is really the only thing that matters in a practical sense. The EU might have good intentions but they've likely been a net negative to the web as a whole.
You're proving GP's point. The EU's legislation left a doorway open so websites could bully users in to continuing letting them harvest their data. If the EU had gone after browsers instead of individual websites, this wouldn't still be an issue.
The pop-ups you see are the industries ham-fisted attempts to circumvent that legislation and carry on data harvesting.
A site that uses cookies for purposes intrinsic to the core functioning of the site doesn't have to show any popups at all.
You're using one now.