It had been in the works for a while, but now it has formally been adopted. From the article:
The regulation provides that by 2027 portable batteries incorporated into appliances should be removable and replaceable by the end-user, leaving sufficient time for operators to adapt the design of their products to this requirement.
I think what they’re trying to do is prevent people from using multiple different types of screws or proprietary screws. Or making it impossible to get to the battery without first removing other parts like the motherboard or the speakers etc…
I think they want to make it so anybody with a screwdriver can remove a battery if they get enough time. I don’t think the requiring that the battery’s literally be hot swappable although I would like to see it this budget phones go back to that.
Hopefully we can see some phones come to market without gobs of adhesive holding them together. It’d be great if I could actually open my phone with just a screwdriver. I truly don’t mind seeing screws on my device, especially since it almost instantly gets tossed into a case anyways.