With the addition of more EU members and with CENELECs expansion eastwards it's very unlikely that anything other than CEE 7/7 will be adopted as standard in Europe. The reality is that apart from a handfull of countries either the German or French (or compatable) outlet is used and the CEE 7/7 plug fits both.
While there's a technical argument, due to ring circuits to keep BS1363, I really can't see the logic of keeping the other non-fused radial-based sockets in use.
Of the other systems 2 are polarised when used with a grounded plug, i.e. Denmark and Switzerland. They could be replaced with the French system giving them compatability with CEE 7/7.
and the Italian system is easily replacable with Schuko.
Personally, I think that the Danish and Swiss systems are potentially leathal as they're fully capable of accepting a grounded CEE 7/7 (or old French/German) plug without completing the earth/ground connection.
The Italian system's 10A outlets won't accept a 16A schuko plug and the 16A outlets have wider pin spacing so also won't accept a grounded CEE 7/7 plug.
Interestingly, before CEE 7/7 the French and German systems were safely incompatable.
The old french plugs are fully round and won't fit into a Schuko outlet and the German plugs won't fit into a French outlet as the protruding pin prevents them from being inserted.
Interestingly, if you bypass the shuttering on a UK/Irish BS1363 socket, which is very easy to do on most of them (just push something into the earth recepticle), you can easily insert a 2-pin European plug.
I've even seen a few schuko plugs jammed in! The pins are almost too fat to fit in, but if you give them a good push they fit!
More modern MK outlets use 2 and 3 way shuttering which makes that impossible as all 3 pins must be inserted in the correct sequence.
However, I've had to cut schuko plugs off IT equipment, coffee machines, and even a commercial display fridge as they were being used in BS1363 sockets! i.e. without any form of earthing!!
This tends to happen, particularly, where the applience is rarely plugged out e.g. a coffee machine or a piece of office equipment and thanks to the switches on most Irish sockets you can even isolate the applience without removing the plug.
If it's just a 2-pin Europlug or a contour plug it's not too bad, particularly in Ireland, where 16/20A radials are normal. However where it's grounded schuko it's potentially leathal.
In the UK it's potentially a serious fire hazard as you could be plugging your applience directly into a circuit only protected by a 32A breaker or even worse, a rewirable fuse!
I still think that BS1363 could easily be replaced by a socket that's compatable with CEE 7/7 and fused. All you'd have to do is include a simple cartridge fuse carrier on the socket that accepts either a 13 or 16A BS1362 fuse.
I can't understand IEE's polarisation argument. British appliences all comply with various european standards and should be quite safe working on a non-polarised supply. However, we could adopt the French outlet and keep some degree of polarisation on class 1 appliences.
The UK already allows various unpolarised connectors.
i.e. "figure of 8" connectors so commonly used to connect small class 2 appliences like radios, videos, satellite boxes, audio equipment etc.
We also now allow the use of a permanently fitted plug adaptor which can only be removed with a tool. This pretty much encases a 2-pin Europlug inside a slightly oversized BS1363 plug. However, there is no way of knowing what the polarity of that plug is as the Europlug could have been inserted either way.
Anyway I guess there's no point in ranting on
The technical committees tend to be a BIT nationalistic in their approach and I doubt that will ever change!