The European Union will make USB-C connectors mandatory for charging all mobile devices, Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton announced in a move likely to upset U.S. tech giant Apple.
Starting in 2024, rechargeable mobile phones and headsets, tablets, e-book readers, digital cameras, video game consoles, and portable speakers will be available in the member states with a single USB-C connector, regardless of manufacturer. And from 2026, laptops will also only be available with such a connector.
This means that customers will need a single universal cable to recharge all their portable devices.
EU consumers could save up to a quarter of a billion euros a year from not having to purchase different charging cables and save 11,000 tons of electronic waste a year, according to Brussels’ calculations.
“We have a deal on the common charger,” Thiery Breton said in a According to the EU internal market commissioner, both EU consumers and the planet will be well served by the agreement.
Apple, which sells most of its devices with their proprietary charger and which fought the move for a long time, did not comment on the announcement.
The decision also creates an interesting situation in the United Kingdom: According to the Brexit agreement, the EU ruling will apply to Northern Ireland but not to England, Wales or Scotland.
