European Union to consider forcing smartphone makers to use USB-C

EU to open an 'impact assessment study' to decide on a common standard for all smartphone chargers

The European Commission is considering new rules that would force all smartphone makers to adopt a common standard for device charging - a move that would force Apple to drop the Lightning port for USB-C in the European Union.

The European Commission claims that there has been a "lack of progress" by phone makers in adopting universal compatibility and is considering enforcing a standard on them, according to a report from Reuters.

By way of justification for the move, the Commission claims that a lack of compatibility is responsible for 51,000 tons of electrical waste every year, as consumers throw out old chargers with their unwanted smartphones.

In 2009, 14 companies signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to harmonise their chargers for new smartphones from 2011. Those companies included Nokia, Samsung, Apple and Huawei.

While the memorandum expired in 2012, almost all new smartphones these days - apart from Apple's - have adopted USB standards for connectivity and charging.

Nevertheless, for European Commissioner for Competition Margrete Vestager this is still not enough. "Given the unsatisfactory progress with this voluntary approach, the Commission will shortly launch an impact assessment study to evaluate costs and benefits of different other options," Reuters quotes Vestager in a letter to what it describes as an EU lawmaker.

The ‘impact assessment study' is the next step in deciding whether firmer action should be taken by the Commission. Vestager's internal market colleague, Elzbieta Bienkowska, will be placed in charge of the issue.

The situation today is much simplified compared to the plethora of different proprietary phone chargers and connectors that mobile phone users had to put up with for much of the 1990s and 2000s, with connectors for one generation often incompatible with the next, let alone between manufacturers.