If you have regularly find yourself with a flat mobile phone battery and the wrong charger, your life will soon be made easier. 

The top mobile telephone suppliers have agreed to back an EU-wide harmonisation of mobile phone phone chargers. The agreement by Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other industry majors will mean phones compatible with standard charging devices will be available in Europe from next year.

"People will not have to throw away their charger whenever they buy a new phone," said EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, estimating that unwanted phone accessories accounted for thousands of tons of waste in Europe each year. The Commission said the the new generation of mobile phones would use a standard micro-USB socket to ensure compatibility.

There are an estimated 400 million mobile phones in Europe, with 185 million new ones bought each year.  While initially the chargers will be required for data-enabled phones,  these are expected to account for almost half of all new mobile handset purchases in 2010. The Commission hopes that as people discard their old handsets, within three to four years all data-enabled phones in Europe will be using standardized chargers.

The agreement also allows for new data-enabled phones to be sold with a standardised charger, but after an unspecified time the two items will be sold separately, reducing waste and preventing pople keeping a large collection of old chargers in thier desk drawer.