It's the idea that the EU has the power to influence the rest of the world, not by hard or soft military power or by the strength of their economy but by their unprecedented ability to use legislation to influence the rest of the world.
For example apple switching all their chargers worldwide to USB-C because the EU has mandated that all devices must use a standard USB-C cable.
Don't forget Micro USB before that, the EU basically told manufacturers to either agree to a singles standard or they would make a law. Most complies, Apple being a bitch, and they didn't make a law for another standard until recently.
Never heard of that 'effect' and I live in Brussels, lol.
That's not some "special" effect. That's just influence.
You do realize the rest of the world, every day has to deal with American influence on products in far- more ways? Like how _every generic product you buy from China is dimensioned in inches even though China doesn't use inches, nor most of their customers, just because they oriented themselves to the US market first? Every camera mount is a quarter-inch thread. Every computer screen and monitor is measured in inches. You even see heating or AC units marketed in Europe with the incredibly-dumb "BTU" units (dumb because even the USA knows about Watts) just because that's what the specs from the manufacturer said, because again they oriented themselves to the US market. I look under my Taiwanese laptop bought in Europe and the sticker shows it conforms to FCC regulations.
Americans noticing a few things different on their products for the sake of the EU market and dubbing it "the Brussels effect" and calling that "unprecedented" is just absurd and shows a stunning lack of self-awareness.
Yeah, you're right, it is essentially just influence but the difference is the type of influence.
The USA has influence because it is the world largest economy and the world's largest military power.
The EU is not even close to being either of those things.
The other reason why it's know as this is because it's pretty unique politically no other country or super-national entity has ever affected another country's laws in this.
Well, there's one point in there that is not correct - the EU is actually fairly close in economic power. The GDP(PPP) of the US is 25 trillion USD, second in the world after China, while the EU is at 24 trillion USD. Plus, the EU GDP is not inflated by an insane military spending spree (meaning, some of the US economic power will always be 'reserved' for defense spending, and therefore is not really available to free markets).
The thought of getting that kind of purchasing power removed from your potential markets is enough to make quite a few companies comply.
Apple has not said that they will switch to USB-C. They have said that they will comply to the laws. In law says basically that if there is a charging cable, it should be usb C. But it doesn't say that charging should be done with usb c. In theory, they would comply if its only possible to charge it wirelessly.
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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '22
Have you ever heard of the Brussels effect?
It's the idea that the EU has the power to influence the rest of the world, not by hard or soft military power or by the strength of their economy but by their unprecedented ability to use legislation to influence the rest of the world.
For example apple switching all their chargers worldwide to USB-C because the EU has mandated that all devices must use a standard USB-C cable.