[aqwwe]

Maybe the European government will do something similar to what they did for cellphone's charging ports (require all manufacturers to use micro USB). And as for the cellphone change, it would hopefully be applied mostly across the board by manufacturers (in USA too).

[ocdtrekkie]

That bears the question of whether or not the law will select the right standard, or be able to change it when practical.

For instance, with USB Type-C coming out, with EU law be permissive of this transition? Or will the EU requirement adapt to allowing Micro-USB and Type-C for a while, and then eventually mandate Type-C?

[Someone1234]

This is a common misconception.

The way the EU's "common external power supply" standard was implemented allowed the manufacturers to pick the standard themselves.

Essentially the EU put a gun to manufacturer's heads, and said "pick a common standard together, or we will!" And they did. So the EU never picked micro-USB, the manufacturers did.

Additionally the original memorandum of understanding has since expired (2012) but it has been deemed a "success" as all major mobile phone manufacturers continue to utilise micro-USB.

So there's no specific reason why USB-C cannot become the new normal. And it seems manufacturers have actually become used to the status quo of having a common standard (except Apple of course).

I don't think you'd see the EU get involved if all of them together moved to USB-C (from micro-USB), they would only get involved if they started to developer proprietary ports again, or all had different incompatible ports/chargers.

Now they just need to do laptops...

[ocdtrekkie]

That's a very helpful explanation, thank you.