[tripzilch]

This one? https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-9-2020-0070...

The charger is obviously the thing between your phone and the power socket. It seems perfectly clear to me.

Because the entire thing is a charger. You can't use the charger without the cable. If the cable was a separate thing, fully interchangeable, the whole law wouldn't be necessary.

And they can't in hindsight decide that the cables aren't part of the "package" because they wrote in the resolution what the motivation of this law is, which is interoperability / compatibility / interchangeability and reducing waste, and if the cable part is non standard and not compatible, then obviously you'd need an additional cable to make the whole charger simply operable. Needing additional cables is what the resolution states (several times) is one of the explicit purposes, to prevent.

They also specifically discuss that wireless charging should be common as well, because not needing a cable is even better than needing the same cable.

I get the idea that sometimes EU laws are so clear and straightforward, that Americans implicitly don't trust them and expect a "gotcha!".