EU orders switch to common phone chargers by 2024

Apple will have to change the connector on iPhones sold in Europe by 2024 after EU countries and lawmakers agreed on Tuesday to a single mobile charging port for mobile phones, tablets and cameras in a world first.

EU member states believe a standard cable for all devices will cut back on electronic waste, but iPhone juggernaut Apple argues a one-size-fits-all charger would slow innovation and create more pollution.

iPhones are charged from a Lightning cable, while Android-based devices use USB-C connectors. Half the chargers sold with mobile phones in 2018 had a USB micro-B connector, while 29% had a USB-C connector and 21% a Lightning connector, according to a 2019 Commission study.

For most portable devices the requirement for charging via a USB Type-C port will come into effect from late 2024, negotiators said, while laptops will be given more time. The USB-C rule will also stretch to digital cameras, headphones, headsets, portable speakers and E-readers.

The decision will be formally ratified by European Parliament and among EU member states later this year before entering into effect. “We have been able to do it in nine months, that means that we can…move fast when there is a political will,” the EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton said. “We are able to say to the lobbies, ‘sorry, but here it is Europe and we’re working for our people’,” he added.

Breton also said the deal would save around 250 million euros ($267 million) for consumers. “It will also allow new technologies such as wireless charging to emerge and to mature without letting innovation become a source of market fragmentation and consumer inconvenience,” he said.

The 27-nation union is home to 450 million people, some of the world’s richest consumers, and the imposition of the USB-C as standard could affect the entire global market.

“This is a rule which will apply to everyone,” said Alex Agius Saliba, who led the negotiations for the European Parliament. “If Apple…or anyone wants to market their product, sell their products within our internal market, they have to abide by our rules,” he said.

Apple, which uses USB-C connectors on some of its iPads and laptops, has insisted any legislation to force a universal charger for all mobiles in the EU is unwarranted. “The proposal is vastly disproportionate to any perceived problem,” the company said in its response to the commission when the law was being drafted. Imposing a charger standard, it argued, would stifle innovation and “reduce European consumer choice by removing more affordable older models from the market”.

The European Commission had long defended a voluntary agreement it made with the device industry that was set in place in 2009 and saw a big reduction in cables, but Apple refused to abide by it.