This law is more than a decade in the making, the only reason it was on Apples roadmap is because of this law.

The EU doesn’t have to mandate a new connector when something new comes up, it just has to be an open standard, ANY open standard. This is miles better for everyone. And the EU doesn’t force the whole world to adapt their standard, it’s just not economical to produce different versions for different markets, but they are very much allowed to sell whatever to their non EU customers.

If you really want the lightning adapter back, you can ask one of the many people who soldered a usb-c connector in an iphone 12/13/14. If one person can do it, I’m pretty sure Apple can, too.