"save consumers a projected €6.5 billion"
I'd really like to see the accounting on that, because to me it seems like a bold faced lie. (If something were to generate actual savings, it'd be picked up without any government intervention.)
In reality this is another massive government mandated spend with one outcome: things will be more expensive going forward in Europe. (And I wouldn't be surprised if the governments will collect more tax revenue, too.)

This is a condition of our 'disposable' society. Out of sight, out of mind. Plastic is an incredibly useful material, but it has become ubiquitous and taken for granted.
Years ago when I learned that plastic polymers cannot be mixed, that much of the recycling was sent to China to be processed, that the recycling 'business' was predicated on profit, that much of the plastic waste ended up in the ocean, that plastics cannot be simply reconstituted into a fuel (yet)...
I advocated locally for a return deposit on all plastic bottles and any moves (in Europe and elsewhere) towards reduction and reuse is to be encouraged. Plastics tend to get thrown into rivers (much of it in Asia) and guess where these rivers flow? This is a worldwide problem.
Life started in the ocean, and if we kill the ocean by over fishing and using it as a dumping ground, it will be our undoing.

I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.

Now if only North and South America had enough guts to cut the strings and start to deal with plastic and neonicotinoids like Europe. The rest of the world would follow suit.

This is a good move but the goals are set for too far out. Give humans 12 years @ 25 million tonnes and see what damage we can do. Before plastic water and soft drink bottles we functioned just fine. The water bottles were introduced for human convenience without thinking of the repercussions that we are seeing now.

How about "biodegradable" plastic? Stuff that's not make from oil. Oh no, we can't have that!

Do they sell so many balloons in Europe that their sticks cause a significant problem?

Unfortunately, banning plastics doesn't smarten-up the very people who are causing the problem in the first place, so this kind of ban needs to be accompanied by a nudge to the sociological system as well.
Plastic cutlery should have been banned (or ignored) decades ago, they work so horribly.
I picked up some stainless steel straws (thick, thin, curved, and straight) for about a buck apiece a few years ago. For soda drinkers, they're a no-brainer. I use the thick ones for my frozen fruit smoothees. Brushes are available for about the same price.

Lawyers got rid of the glass pop bottle. Now, they are going for PET. Next, will be aluminum. This algorithm, of being paid to raise costs, is self destructive.

Logic doesn't appear to be the basis for law-making in the EU. Plastic straws, cutlery, cotton buds, stirrers, balloon sticks and drinks containers are, coincidentally, the kinds of things beach-goers bring to the beach. Some of them are littering, end of story. Banning these products will unnecessarily punish hundreds of millions of European consumers, when simply slapping fines on litterbugs, providing secure trash receptacles and policing the beaches will do the trick. Not doing this will result in straws, cutlery, cotton buds, stirrers, balloon sticks and drinks containers made from paper or other materials littering the beaches in the future.