Yes, the brown/blue code is an IEC standard and those colors are used throughout Europe now, and for flexible cords in Australia, New Zealand, and a lot of Africa. As the marketplace becomes more global, I guess you'll be seeing more of it.
When the new colors were introduced here it caused a certain amount of controversy. After all, we now have blue in a flexible cord which is neutral, but blue in a fixed cable is phase!
Another problem is the green/yellow ground colors. Originally, the colors were about 50/50, but the sleeving used on bare ground wires now is mostly yellow with just a thin longitudinal green stripe. If it's turned the wrong way at the back of a box, it can look like a plain yellow phase wire.
Australia uses different plugs and circuit arrangements than here (no rings), but they inherited a lot of British technical standards, including color codes, distribution voltages, etc.
Yes, 3-ph. is very common here. In fact most distribution is 3-phase, standardized in the early 1970s at 240/415V. Normal residential service is just 2-wire 240V tapped off one phase and neutral.
About the only place to see a single-phase xfmr is feeding 240V 2-wire to a remote home or farmhouse.
