EU’s Greatest Hits

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A couple of years ago there was this discussion about what worthwhile things (If any) the EU has done. I wrote at the time that the EU’s greatest achievement by far (though under appreciated ) was the standardisation of the electric plug and the telephone jack (this was still in the days of landlines and dial-up modems).

A business traveller making a trip in the late 80s or early 90s to 3 or 4 countries had to lug around adaptors for plugs and jacks for each country, a real pain somewhere. But then the EU came up with a standard, gave everyone 3 years to comply and it was done. Non-EU countries complied as well, so that soon you had 1 plug and 1 telephone jack for the whole of Europe and much of North Africa.

Well, except for the U.K., which even then didn’t consider itself part of Europe, and Switzerland (not part of the EU) which also uses it’s plug and socket as an alcohol test for motorists. Anybody visiting the beautiful country who needed to plug in his computer knows what I mean.

Now the EU has struck again, mandating a standardised charging cable for phones, iPad and similar devices, and notebooks. As the mandated USB-C is what the latest Android devices use, Apple fought the decision as long as it could. But yesterday, Apple unveiled it’s newest phone, and lo and behold, it has a USB-C charger. As it makes no sense for any manufacturer to have 2 standards, the USB-C will now effectively become the default worldwide. So does the EU expand it’s clout…..

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