The UK measure that relates to power cords is the Plugs and Sockets (safety) Regulations 1994, Statutory Instrument 1994 No. 1768. I have not read this measure but I understand that it requires that mains powered electrical equipment being supplied in the UK and likely to be sold in the UK to domestic consumers must be supplied by the 'first supplier' i.e. manufacturer or importer, with a mains lead with a properly fitted plug. This plug must be either a UK style fused 250V 13A plug to BS 1363A with a correctly rated fuse or a plug to a type approved for use in a EEA member state in which case an approved conversion adaptor to BS1363A again fited with a correctly rated fuse must be supplied.
This requirement came into force on 1 Feb 1994. It was not brought in under the Low Voltage Directive (implimented in the UK by Statutory Instrument 1994 No. 3260) but as secondary legislation under the Consummer Protection Act. Such national measures that may be thought to be in conflict with European directives must be submitted to the Commission under Directive 83/139/EEC, as amended, who may order a delay before implimentation to allow for any objection to be raised and dealt with. There were objections from the Commission and others to this measure but they were finally resolved and the measure approved by the Commission. I spoke to Nick Winter who is responsible for the unit at the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) that deals with electrical safety legislation. He told me that in trying to steer the Plugs and Sockets Regulations through the 83/139/EEC mechanism his unit had done a survey of other EEA members states to look for requirements for national style plugs. They found nearly all had some such requirement. Most had, in implimenting the LVD, taken the requirement in Annex 1 1(c) of the directive that 'the electrical equipment, together with its component parts should be made in such a way as to ensure that it can be safely and properly assembled and connected' and implimented it for their state to require that mains connections be made with national style mains plugs and sockets. My conclusion is that it is fine for the distributor in the UK (who as importer becomes first supplier) to substitute UK power cords for US ones for units for sale in the UK. There is a good chance that it would be fine to substitute other other power chords for other destinations but you would have to examine the national laws in each state to be sure. All this demonstrates that Europe is very far from a single market. Vic Boersma says that 'the issue here is not UK Statutes, but EU Directives, which are legally binding laws of the European Union that become mandatory by their transposition into national laws of the Member States.' This misses the point that the directives are not in themselves legally binding on individuals or companies. Member states are treaty bound to 'approximate' national laws to the directives but these approximations, which are legally binding on indivduals in that state, are in many cases just that, approximate. Member states can, via the 83/139/EEC mechanism introduce national measures in derogation of the principal of the free movement of goods and several hundred such measures have been notified under this mechanism. The Commission can bring member states to court for incorrect implimentation of the directives and in one case an individual successfully challenged a member state's implimentation of a directive in the European Court but such litigation is not for the faint hearted. Vic was however much nearer the truth than me in one other matter. In a recent post he used the definition of rated voltage in IEC950 to deduce that the LVD did not apply to equipment that was powered by a voltage below the limit but generated voltages within the limits. I'm still not sure of using IEC950 but the conclusion he came to agreed with the interpretation of phrase 'designed for use with a voltage rating of ...' given by Nick Winter at the DTI. They regard the directive as applying only to equipment powered by voltages within the stated limits Nick Rouse