On Tuesday, members of the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament put a timer over Apple’s head.

That timer is counting down the months until Apple needs to comply with a new directive that USB-C charging ports will be “mandatory for a whole range of electronic devices”.

These devices include:

• mobile phones
• tablets and e-readers
• digital cameras and video game consoles
• headphones, earbuds and portable loudspeakers
• wireless mice and keyboards
• portable navigation systems

In addition to the above, laptops will also be covered by these new rules. We’re especially curious to see how this works for the likes of gaming notebooks which often have proprietary power connectors.

“The directive also aims to systematically allow consumers to choose whether to purchase a new device with or without a charger. This will reduce the electronic waste associated with the production, transportation and disposal of chargers,” the Council of the EU explained in a press release.

“So that every consumer knows exactly what they are buying, the co-legislators have decided to include a pictogram specifying whether a new device comes with a charger, and a label indicating the charging performance,” the lawmakers added.

The key thing to note there is that the consumer chooses whether a device includes a charger or not. We can already see the likes of Samsung and Apple spinning this into some marketing exercise but at least consumers in Europe will get to choose if their R30 000 smartphone comes with a charger.

Now as for what Apple will do about this, that’s unclear. The EU lawmakers haven’t said when the directive will come into force but it has said that most devices will need to have the directive implemented 24 months after it comes into effect.

That gives Apple time to launch an iPhone with a USB-C port and given that there is demand for such a smartphone, it could happen. However, what we suspect is more plausible is that Apple will include a dongle in its packaging that allows conversion of a USB-C to a Lightning port. Whether the EU directive would allow this is unclear as the rules are yet to be published as of time of writing.

The big question we have now is whether these rules will bleed into the rest of the world. That’s highly unlikely to our mind but who knows, perhaps it’s less effort to follow the EU rules on a global scale.

We are curious whether the EU will be enforcing the USB Type C standard as from our experience, that ecosystem is a mess.