I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the move towards less-integrated chargers started after the EU began the standardization process in 2009.

And I'm pretty sure you are being fooled by your biases. You want to believe that the EU is necessary for this kind of change to happen, ergo when the change happens (worldwide!) it can only be because of the EU?

Or in other words, "I can't argue the facts, so I'll argue the man". Banging shoes next?

The only facts that we really can observe:

- Apple managed to get through all the regulation "mandates" without any serious repercussion to their operations, showing the complete lack of effectiveness of said regulations.

- market conditions and the development timeline of the technology (USB-C with power delivery) can alone explain the gradual change in the Apple product line.

Those are the facts. Now let's go to the opinion part and apply Occam's razor here: between the explanation that requires believing that Apple is changing its products out of fear from EU regulatory bodies (despite historical evidence of the contrary) and the explanation that says changes were bound to happen anyway due to being sensible business, which one is simpler? Which one is more likely to be correct?