Seismic design codes are fundamental to the provision of safe infrastructure in earthquake-prone regions. At the moment of writing this paper, the European standard for seismic design (Eurocode 8) is in its final voting phase after undergoing important changes. This paper evaluates the consequences of the changes introduced in the upcoming Eurocode 8 against its current version and its American counterpart using a fair and hazard-consistent comparative framework. To this end, 16 steel moment resisting frames of different geometries are designed in accordance with each code. The resulting 48 frames are subjected to a series of 596 strong ground-motions carefully selected to be consistent with their design hazard, and the outcomes of these extensive analyses are presented as structural demand hazard curves for peak drifts and residual deformations. Our results reveal that, when assessed from a hazard-consistent perspective, European designs remain over-conservative in comparison with the designs adhering to the American standards, which are also perceived to be clearer and simpler, despite the important changes introduced in the new version of Eurocode 8. Our results also stress in quantifiable terms the marked limitations of current prescriptive design codes to guarantee reasonably similar demands are experienced by structures designed to the same level of performance requirement.