No; those do nothing of the sort. All that does is increase both costs and government control, and hinder competition actually; with respect to automobiles, it forces uniformity and makes uniqueness in terms of stying and functionality far too expensive.
As an example of an innocuous or even good regulation is having bumpers on cars the same height off the ground. Another is having the distance between the rails of a railroad to be the same distance across. A third is to have the number of turns on a bolt of a certain size equal the number of turns on the nut. Such things as these facilitate trade and competition across national borders. …
While it is important for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to have a common railroad gauge, which for historical reasons, is 5’ 3”, it is not so important that the island share a common gauge with the rest of the world.
As for the Iberian peninsula, it would be good for Spain and Portugal to get with the program. I note that gauge of new high-speed track on the peninsula is standard gauge (4’ 8 1/2”). So, maybe they are getting with the program.
The usual reason for odd ball RR gauge is to prevent invasion. Russia and Spain were concerning, with some reason, that Napoleon would use their RR system to invade the country. Without a government decree, the U.S. overcome a confusion of gauges to adopt standard gauge via a private decision in, I think, 1884.
But, hey, let everyone manufacture their own unique bolts with turns different from those on nuts, drive cars variously on the left or the right hand side of the road, enter into contracts with words whose meanings are found in everybody’s freely-chosen dictionary, because anything else would be communism and one-world government!