The UK will refuse to comply with new EU rules on having a single charger that works for all mobile phones.
The government said it was “not currently considering” compliance with EU legislation on a common phone charger for devices such as smartphones, tablets, portable speakers and, ultimately, laptops.
This position means that Apple’s iPhone chargers will be banned in Northern Ireland, but not in the rest of the UK, due to the Brexit agreement, which created the border with the Irish Sea.
The Protocol on Northern Ireland means that the province continues to comply with certain single market rules, including the Radio Equipment Directive, to prevent the need for a hard Irish border.
EU law means that portable devices will have to run on a USB Type-C charger by 2024. Brussels has said it will reduce e-waste by 11,000 tonnes a year and save consumers £ 213 million a year.
EU law will hit Apple hard, which has its own “lightning connector”. The company says the ban will stifle innovation.
Apple can make its smartphones in the UK compliant with EU rules to simplify the process, or it can supply Northern Ireland with phones entirely from the EU to avoid any customs checks at the Irish Sea border.
Rising tensions over the Northern Ireland Protocol
The United Kingdom has asked Brussels to agree to a new dual regulatory system in the negotiations on the protocol, which gives Northern Ireland access to EU and UK markets.
This will allow manufacturers to produce products in Northern Ireland according to UK or EU standards. However, Brussels is worried that goods that do not meet its standards could cross the invisible border to Ireland, an EU member.
Tensions between the United Kingdom and the EU are mounting ahead of the expected publication of legislation that unilaterally repeals parts of the Protocol this week or next. Brussels has warned that this would violate international law and risk a trade war.
The government insists the bill is legal, despite reports that one of its top legal advisers has warned it would violate international law.
Brussels is blocking the UK’s associate membership in the EU’s € 95 billion Horizon program over a dead end around the Protocol.
The United Kingdom has agreed to pay £ 15 billion over seven years for membership of the scheme as part of a Brexit deal.
Britain must use billions to create its own competition scheme after Horizon membership has become “political football” in the last 18 months, said a leading Oxford professor.
Professor Sir John Bell, chief professor of medicine at Oxford University, said: “I’m not sure we’ll be much worse, and we could actually be better off if we just set up our own program.
In a speech in Brussels on Wednesday, Science Minister George Freeman warned that the United Kingdom is ready to do so unless the EU puts science above politics.
At the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin warned that breaking the protocol would be a “historic low” and “deeply harmful”.
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