Arguably achieved nothing as Android was already on USB-C and Apple too on everything but iPhone and would have switched anyway soon for speed reasons regardless. Arguably, the switch was too early and a disservice to iPhone users.
That said, I stand by my comment that most iPhone users would have been better off with Lightning. For many of us who carry Macs as well as phones, having a singular charger is beneficial (less so now that you'd wanna use MagSafe with the Mac, again), but still years of Lightning cables make them easy to find in any iPhone household.
They had already switched iPad Pros long before EU mandate was a thing, so I don't think your would've-not-been theory is substantiated by evidence. If I were to speculate, Apple's evolution would be towards killing the port altogether and do everything wirelessly which is an admirable goal (I'm sure will be downvoted to the oblivion in this community for saying this, but that's also the sentiment of the initial MacBook Air release in 2008 which now defines the modern laptop).
For sending files, Apple has perfected wireless AirDrop and that's quite speedy.
It appears much harder to opt out of said socialism without leaving the country though, so read that again with this pretext perhaps?