Your argument seems a little bad faith. Sure, random devices aren't able to connect to my phone without my consent but Apple devices only need that consent once. After they're on my apple account they can connect with my other apple devices seamlessly, no companion apps at any stage.

My AirPods move from my phone to my macbook all by themselves based on which device needs audio and my macbook can ask for my iphone's camera and mic at will. My Apple devices can do this because they have hardware level security to allow for this. The EU wants the same capabilities to be extended to non-apple devices.

This would mean that Apple would have to let devices connect without a companion app and possibly make a backdoor in their hardware security layer or worse allow anyone to incorporate their hardware security into any device.

If some aliexpress buds were able to do that then this would definitely pose a problem. Bad actors should not get access to Apple's proprietary security tech and that tech is one of the reasons that Apple devices have capabilities which non-apple devices do not.

edit: Your original comment makes a couple of good points re: the cost of lockin for consumers. However, I would like to point out that this cost isn't a problem when the locked in devices are as good as they are. Apple's devices routinely either come near to the top or sit at the top of the list of best X devices from many different review sources. If their locked in devices were worse this would make sense but often they are much better than all of their competition. I wouldn't buy any AirPod competitors because they genuinely don't actually represent better value even when they are cheaper than AirPods. Similarly with other devices, I've tried almost everything at one point or another. The first time I used Android I installed it myself on an HTC HD2. When I ditched windows I went with linux before I went with Apple. I've had powerful self built windows machines and Asus gaming laptops and a google pixel and a pebble and tried many more devices without actually owning them myself. Nothing has ever come close to my apple silicon macbook, my old iphone which I'm still using, my 2nd hand cheap ipad mini or my apple watch. I don't buy apple devices because I'm locked in and have no other choice, I buy them because they actually represent good value for me and my use case.