The EU rule that would require mobile chargers to use USB Type-C has received strong support from the European Parliament, opening the door for its implementation by the end of 2024.

The e-waste proposal has been pushed by MEPs for more than ten years, so the enormously positive plenary vote today — 602 in favour of the regulation, 13 against, plus eight abstentions — is scarcely surprising.

Additionally, lawmakers have previously campaigned for the universal charger guidelines to be expanded to cover more categories of portable consumer electronics devices (including laptops).

The order has not yet become official legislation. Even though the Council must still give it its final approval, the co-legislators have achieved a tentative political accord this summer, so this step is only seen as a formality.

Following approval by the Council, the directive will go into effect 20 days after it is published in the EU Official Journal. Member states will then have 12 months to transpose the regulations before they must apply them for another 12 months. All mobile phones, tablets, and cameras sold in the EU must have a USB Type-C charging connector, thus it appears that the requirement will begin to bite toward the end of 2024.

After that, the requirement will apply to laptops starting in the spring of 2026.

Given that Apple has been so adamant about sticking with its proprietary smartphone charging standard, there will be a lot of attention paid to what the iPhone maker does and how soon it adopts USB-C across its lineup of mobile devices (and all the dongles it can sell around the Lightning port).

According to a press release from the parliament, 'all new mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, handheld game consoles, portable speakers, e-readers, keyboards, mice, portable navigation systems, earbuds, and laptops that are rechargeable via a wired cable and operating with a power delivery of up to 100 Watts will have to be equipped with a USB Type-C port, regardless of their manufacturer.'

In order to prevent manufacturers from simply switching from proprietary charging ports to proprietary wireless charging technology, which would create a new firehose of e-waste, MEPs have also obligated the Commission to address wireless charging interoperability in the near future. They say the EU executive must develop a proposal by the end of 2024 to harmonise interoperability requirements for the technology.