TOPLINE The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, announced a new plan on Thursday that would establish the USB-C charger as the standard throughout its two dozen-plus member states for smartphones, tablets and other devices—a move Apple, which uses a separate “Lightning” charging system for its iPhones, has long opposed.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



The revision of the existing Radio Equipment Directive is intended to reduce waste and increase ease for consumers, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_4613" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">press release</a>&nbsp;shared on Thursday.



In addition to establishing a “harmonised charging port” the proposed legislation would unbundle the sale of electronic devices and chargers to reduce the number of “unwanted” or “unused” chargers.



The move will affect smartphones, tablets, headphones, cameras, speakers and video game devices.



According to a&nbsp;<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/46754" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fact sheet</a>&nbsp;provided by the Commission, the new rule would reduce e-waste “by almost a thousand tonnes annually.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



The movement to adopt a common charger in Europe has been a long time coming. The number of different mobile phone chargers on the market has been whittled down from 30 to three (including the USB micro-B) since 2009, when the Commission “facilitated a voluntary agreement by the industry.” Thursday’s news is the final step toward adopting a single, universal charger. “We gave industry plenty of time to come up with their own solutions, now time is ripe for legislative action for a common charger,” Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for a Europe fit for the Digital Age, said in the announcement.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critic">CHIEF CRITIC</h2>



For years Apple has remained a stubborn holdout, refusing to get rid of its unique iPhone charger. “Apple stands for innovation,” they wrote in a 2019&nbsp;<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/2020-Standard-chargers-for-mobile-phones/F18119_en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">feedback form</a>&nbsp;opposing the initiative. “Regulations that would drive conformity across the type of connector built into all smartphones freeze innovation rather than encourage it. Such proposals are bad for the environment and unnecessarily disruptive for customers.” They put out a similar&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/eu-plans-one-mobile-charging-port-all-setback-apple-2021-09-23/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a>&nbsp;in the wake of Thursday’s announcement: “We remain concerned that strict regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, which in turn will harm consumers in Europe and around the world.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



The next step for the Commission’s proposal would be adoption by the European Parliament and Council, plus a two year “transition period” that would “give industry ample time to adapt before the entry into application,” according to the press release.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



“<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/23/business/european-union-apple-charging-port.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EU Seeks Common Charger for All Phones, Hurting Apple</a>” (New York Times)



“<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/eu-plans-one-mobile-charging-port-all-setback-apple-2021-09-23/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EU plans one mobile charging port for all, in setback for Apple</a>” (Reuters)



“<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58665809" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EU rules to force USB-C chargers for all phones</a>” (BBC News)



By Téa Kvetenadze, Forbes Staff

BELGIUM-EU-CHARGER-PHONE

EU Proposes Universal Charger—A Blow To Apple

The largest free trade area in the world, with a combined GDP of $3.3 trillion, came into effect on the first day of 2021. A look at what exactly implementation of a deal of this magnitude means.



By Paula Slier and Sasha Star



AFRICA’S TRADE RELATIONSHIPS HAVE BEEN irreversibly affected by three events – the Covid-19 pandemic and two important trade agreements.



At midnight on 31 January 2020, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) officially came into force. The decision – Brexit – made by 52% of the British population resulted in the EU losing its second-largest economy and the Union Jack isolating itself in terms of trade, effectively quarantining in its own home. But for Africa, the move holds opportunities. Untapped export potential to the UK is large as is untapped UK export to Africa; the latter is worth more than $8 billion.



Yet, it is the new trade agreement implemented in Africa where interest should really be directed; 54 of the 55 African Union states on the continent have signed up for the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement (AfCFTA) which came into effect on the first day of 2021. Eritrea is the only country that chose to sit out – and there are various explanations as to why not unconnected to power and politics.



By creating the largest free trade area in the world, 1.3 billion people are now set to benefit from the elimination of tariffs on most goods, the liberalization trade of key services and the address of non-tariff obstacles to intraregional trade. The AfCFTA is estimated to bring Africa annual income gains of more than $130 billion per year.



The deal could not have come at a better time, though this was hardly factored in when the agreement was originally brokered in March 2018. Covid-19 has substantially impacted Africa’s tourism sector that accounts for much of its revenue— particularly for smaller nations — while the trade of goods, oil, and even food has also declined significantly as a result of the novel coronavirus.



“The pandemic has presented a historic opportunity to build a better future,” says the African Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It stresses that “trade integration, along with domestic reforms to improve revenue mobilization, digitalization, competition, social safety nets, and climate-change mitigation, will be critical for the region’s resilience, growth and job creation”.



An extensive reduction of tariffs is the first step towards this. With 90% of taxed intraregional trade flows being contracted under the AfCFTA, current flows are due to increase by around 16%, or $16 billion.



“The AfCFTA, if implemented as laid out in papers, would usher an economic progression that would make China’s remarkable economic transformation look basic,” claims Ibrahim Anoba, the Managing Editor of AfricanLiberty.org.



“We’re talking about a continent with a consumer market as large as China but with a superior mineral and natural resources concentration.” The potential of the AfCFTA is enormous, but, as Anoba points out, this all depends on the players in the game. “The different thing about the AfCFTA is that it would take an absolute commitment from as many signatory states as possible to be efficient,” he says. “The first phase is the conceiving of the idea. The second is implementation; proper implementation. This is where we’re at. We cannot move further unless we do this right.”



What exactly does implementation of a deal of this magnitude mean, though?



With so many players involved, it is understandable that the AfCFTA will be enforced in stages. The instruments that are already operational include the regulations and administrative rulings applied by governments to determine the source of goods, services and investments known as the rules of origin; the monitoring and elimination of non-tariff barriers; as well as the schedule of tariff concessions and other specific commitments.



“Long term, the AfCFTA faces a Brexit type of threat from the larger economies which may feel like they are giving up too much autonomy by being part of the agreement,” warns Jamie Mighti, a South Africa-based political analyst. “This risk is higher in Africa than in the European Union because of increased economic disparities between states and Afrophobic attitudes.” Mighti believes that there are substantial levels of antipathy to the business presence of Africans from other states in the large African economies and that this could present a massive challenge to the success of the AfCFTA.



It is not all doom and gloom, however. Mighti is of the opinion that better inclusion of the youth on the continent is an excellent way to ensure that the agreement will thrive, and that more focus should be placed on aiding small and medium-sized businesses, as opposed to large entities. The IMF also feels that tariff reductions should be complemented by policies to reduce non-tariff bottlenecks to trade, and that agriculture-based and less diversified countries should combine trade policies with structural reforms that boost agricultural productivity to better leverage existing comparative advantages.



Overall, the AfCFTA has been packaged as an opportunity to lead Africa down a path of prosperity, or fall into greater economic depravity that will take decades to equalize. As Anoba sums up, “If things go according to plan, we can finally expect Africa to emerge as the global economy’s heartbeat a decade from now.”

Foreman control loading Containers box from Cargo freight ship

Will The AfCFTA Be The Heartbeat Of The Global Economy?

The long delayed signing of a new trade agreement with the European Union further exposes the chaotic state of integration within the East African Community (EAC) bloc.
The pact, known as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), was originally set for ratification on October 1, 2016, but, five months later, that is still to happen.
The impasse has split the EAC bloc. While Kenya and Rwanda signed the agreement in September last year, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi are yet to do so, citing the need for more time to analyse the deal.
The stance taken by Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi means that the pacts signed by Kenya and Rwanda are inconsequential – a new agreement with the EU must be endorsed as a bloc.
Tanzania’s President John Magufuli and his Uganda counterpart l have remained vocal against a rushed deal with EU, even as Kenya’s frustrations deepened given the risks of not concluding a deal with Europe.
“It is better if the signing of the deal is shelved until further consultations are made,” Museveni told a media briefing while on a state visit in Tanzania at the end of February.
Kenya stands to lose the most if the deal falls through. The other EAC member states – Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda – would continue to get duty- and quota-free access under the EU’s Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative, since they are classified as the least developed countries.
This whole quandary shows how shallow the EAC integration has been, despite the bloc attaining the critical customs union status way back in 2005 and a common market in 2011. Integration goes beyond just having such structures; other aspects, such as trust and solidarity, are critical to moving things forward.
A review of recent key events in East Africa reveals massive levels of negative rivalry and mistrust which doesn’t augur well for the bloc. Things have not been well since 2013 when Tanzania fell out with Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda following the formation of their short-lived ‘coalition of the willing’, ostensibly to push for faster integration.
The now collapsed initiative was a terrible diplomatic mistake by Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya because it weakened the spirit of consensus and teamwork in the bloc. Since then, the chaos and mistrust triggered by this wild experiment has been evident in key issues involving the bloc. For instance, a new infrastructure and energy partnership between Tanzania and Uganda has left Kenya frothing at the mouth, especially after Kampala pulled out of an initial deal to build a joint crude pipeline with Kenya in favor of a route through Tanzania.
Kenya clearly feels slighted by the latest dalliance between Dar es Salaam and Kampala as was shown during the recently held election of a new chairperson of the African Union Commission. When Kenya’s candidate in the elections, Amina Mohamed, was defeated, Nairobi promptly pointed accusing fingers at Tanzania and Uganda for allegedly sabotaging its efforts to clinch the position it had highly campaigned for. Both Tanzania and Uganda denied the claims.
“Uganda wishes to state categorically that our support to the candidature of Amina before and during elections was unequivocal. Uganda wishes to reassure the government and the people of Kenya, and Amina in particular, that we remain a reliable ally and partner given our warm and close relations and our commitment to the EAC integration,” Uganda’s Foreign Affairs ministry said in response to Kenya.
Tackling the mistrust and clandestine power rivalry will be critical in putting the EAC back on a clear path to full integration which would help address challenges such as those being experienced in the elusive EPA deal. The big brother syndrome has no place in regional integration and all partners must inculcate a spirit of comradeship to excel.
Kenya and Rwanda must not been seen to be bulldozing the rest to sign a pact with Europe. Their decision to sign the deal ahead of the rest sent the wrong signal to other EAC partners who read mischief in the whole process.
Concluding the deal with Europe is critical for the EAC as it would help settle anxiety among investors. Business loathes a vacuum and efforts must be made to clear all hurdles to find a deal that would be favorable to all.

The Elusive Trade Deal  that split east africa

A British citizen of Nigerian origin is providing a voice for Africa in Brussels where few are heard.
Uzo Madu left her consultancy job to launch a program called What’s in it for Africa (WIIFA) in 2015.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4442" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/UZO-Madu-3-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
“What really spurred me to create WIIFA was that there were communication gaps when it came to talking about African interests in the EU context,” she says.
Madu says that managing the European Union (EU)-Africa relationship effectively will shape how foreign direct investments are made on the continent, the extent of trade preference for African countries to enter the EU and the protection African states may get in terms of competitiveness.
WIIFA is a useful information resource for Africans to gain a better grasp of the opportunities and challenges posed by EU policies.
“The central focus of the online program and blog is to produce an African narrative around what is occurring around the EU. Not only to feed into debates taking place in Brussels, but to inform an African audience about the policy landscape playing out in that city which can have economic and political implications for them.”
However, Madu’s rewards come with challenges.
“The biggest issue I have faced was getting the buy-in from potential interviewees. If you are not a big media outfit, people tend to approach you or react to you with a fair amount of caution.”
“Because WIIFA is still building a name for itself, it made it difficult to push the boundaries in approaching a topic, for fear of alienating a potential interlocutor or partner in the future.”
Although the project has received positive feedback, it operates without any external funding. This limits her content to one or two videos a month.
This hasn’t diminished Madu’s belief in the project.
“I am very excited about what is yet to come, which is much more in-depth policy analysis, upfront debates tackling the tough questions and events.”
Madu might be the only person who presents Africa’s concerns in the EU environment. This is one of the reasons she is becoming a recognized figure in the heart of Europe. Will WIIFA become known in Africa? Time will tell.

Tag: European Union

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

EU Proposes Universal Charger—A Blow To Apple

Will The AfCFTA Be The Heartbeat Of The Global Economy?

The Elusive Trade Deal that split east africa

A Voice For Africa In The EU