I'm not sure if the rest of Europe will follow but I think this is only a British/Irish proposal at the moment. The IAA and CAA got together and agreed to harmonise the TA in both British and Irish airspace. That's the background to it. Here it was usually in and around FL65.
That always seemed a bit low to me. Just another little job to do in the climb. Not that it bothered me too much as I have an FL readout quite separate from the altimeters.
18000 makes sense to me.