Funny enough, if Micro-USB has been mandated by the EU, Lightning wouldn't even exist and everyone would have been stuck with the IMHO chunky Micro-USB.
Micro-USB was mandated by the EU. That's a large part of the reason we even have a standardized charging port.
This has been enforced since late 2012 (in draft since 2008) and is the reason why Apple had to include the micro-USB adapter in order to sell in the EU.
There is no reason for speculation since facts are available on your friendly neighborhood wiki. What we're seeing now is that the law is updated to enforce USB-C, which has been accommodated for a while.
The intent is not to standardize on an implementation forever, but to make the industry agree on a standard.
It wasn’t mandated the same way USB-C is today. It had enough flexibility that Apple could implement the superior Lightning connector. If the EU mandated micro-usb the way they are USB-C, Lightning would not have been released.
Please explain why you think this is true, it is far from obvious. I don't have time to read the legalese in detail, but from reading an abstract it doesn't seem to be the case.
This has been enforced since late 2012 (in draft since 2008) and is the reason why Apple had to include the micro-USB adapter in order to sell in the EU.
There is no reason for speculation since facts are available on your friendly neighborhood wiki. What we're seeing now is that the law is updated to enforce USB-C, which has been accommodated for a while.
The intent is not to standardize on an implementation forever, but to make the industry agree on a standard.