During a debate in plenary session in Strasbourg on Monday 13 January, both the European Parliament and Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission Vice-President for Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight, appeared to be thinking along the same lines in opting for a mandatory solution to enforce a universal charger on all portable objects.
During the debate, there was near-unanimity amongst all of the political groups in calling for a mandatory solution, with a number MEPs, including Pascal Durand (Greens/EFA, France) and Kateřina Konečná (GUE/NGL, Czech Republic), stating how “easy” or even “very easy” the solution was, and expressing their annoyance at the Commission's lack of action up to that point. Róża Thun und Hohenstein (EPP, Poland) gave the Commission an ultimatum, demanding that it come up with a proposal within 6 months.
“It is never too late for the industry to come up with a suitable proposal, but for now we need to look at the legislative approach” said Šefčovič. In the Commissioner's view, the industry’s voluntary approach, where they endorsed a coordination strategy for introducing an interoperable universal charger, bore fruit initially between 2009 and 2014, reducing the number of charger types from around thirty to three (a micro-USB port, Apple's Lightning port and the USB-C port).
But, according to the Commissioner, since then the memorandum of understanding has become a “missed opportunity”, with businesses seeming much less active regarding the issue. Consequently, he announced that, on the basis of a study due to be published at the end of this month or in early February, the Commission would be opting for a combination of legislative and non-legislative measures, possibly a delegated act or even a legislative instrument. The Commissioner reiterated in particular that he was considering banning the systematic sale of chargers with portable objects.
In December 2013, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU came to an agreement on the Radio Equipment Directive (see EUROPE 10988/22). As part of this agreement, European legislators called for the introduction of a single charger and asked the European Commission to follow this up using a delegated act. So far, however, the European Commission has not adopted a delegated act. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)