In Austria and Germany there's one big rule... install new stuff to code, but don't trust _any_ old wiring color. Makes for a little more work always checking what you really have, but to me that sounds like a sensible approach. And while fixed wiring is not _that_ bad, old UK flexible cords exported to other countries could have had fatal results! I remember quite vividly having an old UK tape recorder when I was about 8, plug cut off, ends black, green and red... of course we thought black is phase, red ground, so green has to be the neutral. (before I took it apart I didn't even know it was from the UK). Don't wan't to imagine what could have happened with that beast!
So I guess iinternational harmonization is a good thing in that respect, and having two different color codes for fixed and flexible wiring just sounds ridiculous for a non-brit, sorry to say that!
