My point is that the same thing holds for appliance leads anywhere else. Only difference is in the use of 32A circuit breakers for the rings which then necessitates lower fault impedance to reliably trip the breaker. There is essentially no technical reason why the breaker has so large current rating as in Europe one 16A breaker for all sockets in whole flat typically suffices.<p>While the article suggests that preferred practice in continental Europe is to have one (typically 16A) breaker per socket, it&#x27;s not required and usually considered redundant.<p>Another reason (and probably more relevant) for the fuses in the plug I can see is that when wire that is part of the ring circuit gets broken, the safe current handling capacity of the circuit gets halved and the fuses then offer at least some protection from over-current.<p>It seems to me that whoever come up with the ring circuit idea understood that it&#x27;s fundamentally unsafe and thus designed in additional protection measures so the thing at least looks safer.