By Andrew Stuttaford
Saturday, December 28, 2024
The regulatory superpower has struck again.
Scrolling through X this morning, I came across this
dramatic post from the EU Commission:
It’s time for THE charger.
Today, the USB-C becomes officially
the common standard for charging electronic devices in the EU.
It means better-charging
technology, reduced e-waste, and less fuss to find the chargers you need.
This is what the “Digital EU” amounts to,
mandating that a certain type of charger must be used?
The EU may have failed to keep up with innovations in
mobile telephony, but it knows a good charger when it sees one, and it knows
that it knows best, so much so, that it is going to insist on the USB-C.
To repeat a familiar line, if the EU cannot innovate, it will regulate.
Back in 2022, the EU parliament explained:
By the end of 2024, all mobile
phones, tablets and cameras sold in the EU will have to be equipped with a USB
Type-C charging port. From spring 2026, the obligation will extend to laptops.
The new law, adopted by plenary on Tuesday with 602 votes in favour, 13 against
and 8 abstentions, is part of a broader EU effort to reduce e-waste and to
empower consumers to make more sustainable choices.
Under the new rules, consumers will
no longer need a different charger every time they purchase a new device, as
they will be able to use one single charger for a whole range of small and
medium-sized portable electronic devices . . .
Of course there had to be an environmental reason
for this, as well as a claim that Brussels was doing consumers a favor by
determining what THE charger should be. Choice is such a strain.
And what is the history of the USB-C?
Turn to Wikipedia:
The design for the USB-C connector
was initially developed in 2012 by Intel, HP Inc., Microsoft, and the USB
Implementers Forum.
Intel, HP, and Microsoft – all American companies. None
from the EU. None of the founder members of the USB Implementers Forum were
from the EU either. The final form of the USB-C (released ten years ago) was
designed by the same group, together with Renesas (Japan), Texas Instruments
and, finally, yes, a firm from the EU, STM Microelectronics. The #DigitalEU’s
involvement with the USB-C was not entirely confined to regulation, not entirely,
so there’s that.
However (mildly) amusing this move by Brussels in all its
pettiness may be, it’s hard to get too excited one way or another about the
USB-Coronation, although I can’t help wondering whether the effect of it will
be, by locking in USB-C, to discourage innovation.
There’s something else. The EU is a large market, and it
used the clout that comes with that to “force” Apple to abandon its proprietary Lightning charger.
The Guardian (October 26, 2022):
Apple has already switched much of
its product line over to the standard, which can send up to 240W of power and
40Gbps of data over the same cable. Its first laptop to use USB-C to charge was
the 12in MacBook in 2015, while iPads began switching from the Lightning
connector in 2018.
But the company had pushed back
against requirements to switch its phones to the standard, saying that “strict
regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than
encouraging it, which in turn will harm consumers in Europe and around the
world”…
But, even if the USB-C mandate is a relatively trivial
example of Brussels using its clout to lay down the law, there are other
instances where this matters rather more. To take two examples, it is currently
attempting to regulate social media beyond the EU’s borders and then there’s a law
scheduled to come into force in 2027, the
Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D).
Bernard Sharfman explained how this works in an article
for Capital Matters earlier this week:
For major U.S. companies that sell
goods and services into the EU, the CS3D imposes a regulatory burden equivalent
to a significant tariff on their sales into the EU. The forthcoming Trump
administration must enter into negotiations with the EU to stop the harm that
this law will do to our largest and most successful companies.
The CS3D applies not only to the
subsidiaries of U.S. companies operating in the EU, but to the parent company
as well. The EU is saying to Microsoft, General Motors, Exxon Mobil, etc., that
if you want to do business in Europe, you must totally restructure your
corporate governance approach both here and at home…
I wrote a bit about CS3D too here, noting, in particular, how fines for breaches of
this law will be calculated by reference not to the percentage of a company’s
sales in the EU, but to its sales worldwide:
This is in keeping with the EU’s
image of itself as a “regulatory superpower,” a global regulator and so on.
It’s also in keeping with the way that the bloc is now operating as a kind of
genteel pirate cartel, robbing successful companies (particularly, up to now,
if they are American and high tech) caught within Brussels’ legal web. And
finally, this law… is a protectionist device, designed to force up costs for
certain non-EU companies that have the effrontery to do too much business in
the bloc. To repeat a point I have made before with reference to the EU’s
looting of American tech companies, the U.S. should retaliate with sanctions if
any American enterprises are hit by this law. Beyond that, it should consider
whether this legislation amounts to a non-tariff barrier requiring a
commensurate response…
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