guess who's plug gets it in the shorts when some bureaucrat decides we must unify?
Well, one large country (UK), and a few small ones (Ireland 4.2 million), Cyprus (small), Malta (small!) isn't really going to sway the balance in favour of changing the entire EU over to BS1363. Let's face it none of them are ideal standards.
BS1363 is enormous and has limited contact areas due to the use of sleeves on the pins.
Schuko's not polarised and inadvertently able to mate with various non-grounded or differently grounded outlets..
they could have killed two birds with one stone and come up with something sensible to replace both of them!
Personally, I think it's an opportunity missed though. They could have standardised to a modern, non-bulky alternative to BS1363, Schuko and the various other systems back in about 1972 when small appliances were less common and people didn't carry things around as much. When they were harmonising the flexible cable colours, they could have also mandated a new plug. The UK couldn't have really complained given at that stage it had a cludge of BS546 (umpteen variations) and Bs1363 and shipped almost all appliances without a plug !!! Same for Ireland.
It'd be an absolute nightmare to change now.
Alternatively, they could just ship EVERYTHING with a keyed (by cable rating) IEC connector, that way you could fit your own cable. IT equipment does it, so why not just do everything that way ?!