EU may do more to speed up the arrival of universal phone chargers

The European Commission, through Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition, has announced that European regulators will investigate whether more action is needed to realize the arrival of a universal phone charger.

According to the European Commission, there has been a lack of progress on the part of the smartphone makers towards the introduction of a universal phone charger. Therefore, EU supervisory authorities are planning to investigate whether action is required. Vestager recently said this in response to questions from an EU member state, Reuters writes.

The European Commission is not happy with the current situation, in which there is a voluntary approach and developments have to come mainly from the manufacturers. A study will be launched shortly to examine the costs and benefits of other approaches.

It’s not just the convenience for consumers that is why the EU is trying to pursue the goal of a universal charger; the Commission also mentions the mountain of more than 51,000 tons of electronic waste in the form of old chargers, which is produced every year.

In 2009, fourteen manufacturers, such as Nokia, Samsung and Apple at the time, signed a voluntary agreement so that phones would have a micro-USB connection for a universal charger. However, this memorandum of understanding expired at the end of 2012 and the industry has not renewed it, except for some signed letters of intent from 2013 and 2014.