The EU's 'Like-Minded' Charade: Exposing the Hypocrisy of 'Rules-Based' Multilateralism

Introduction: The Malleable Morality of Brussels

The European Union positions itself as the last bastion of a liberal, rules-based international order, a beacon of values in a chaotic world. Its 2021 Joint Communication on multilateralism explicitly tied this mission to cooperation with “like-minded” countries that share its fundamental democratic principles. However, a closer examination of its actual diplomacy reveals a far more cynical and pragmatic reality. The term “like-minded” has become a fluid, fungible concept within EU corridors, stretched and contorted to justify partnerships with a “diverse set of countries” that includes regimes with abysmal human rights records. This strategic ambiguity is not a bug in the system; it is a deliberate feature, allowing Brussels to maintain the high-minded rhetoric of a values-led foreign policy while actively engaging in the realpolitik necessary to secure its economic and geopolitical interests. This essay argues that this contradiction lays bare the fundamental hypocrisy of the Western-led “rules-based order,” exposing it as a system designed not for universal application, but for the selective benefit and security of its architects.

The Facts: Two Faces of ‘Like-Mindedness’

The article provides a clear dissection of the EU’s dual-track approach. On one track, exemplified by the 2021 strategy, “like-mindedness” is values-based, rooted in shared commitments to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. This is the definition trotted out for public consumption and in formal security partnerships. On a parallel and often more consequential track, “like-mindedness” is purely interest-based. Here, it refers simply to an alignment of situational needs, such as securing access to critical raw materials. Under this definition, countries become “like-minded” not through shared ideals, but through shared dependency. The EU’s partnerships on critical raw materials with Kazakhstan and Rwanda are stark examples. These are regimes that, by the EU’s own stated values, systematically violate fundamental freedoms. Yet, they are welcomed into the fold of “like-minded” partners because their resources are critical for the EU’s green and digital transitions.

This conceptual fuzziness serves a direct purpose. It acts as a “filter.” When convenient, the stricter, values-based filter is applied to limit cooperation, often creating a club that looks remarkably like the traditional “West”—the G7, Australia, Japan, and South Korea. When necessary, particularly in the face of perceived threats from a rising China or a disruptive Russia, the filter is swapped out for a more permissive, interest-based one. This allows Brussels to “foster new partnerships across the globe” with virtually anyone, regardless of their governance model. The strategy is explicitly framed as a response to external pressures: “Trump administration’s destruction of the Transatlantic relationship, Russia’s protracted war in Ukraine, and China’s growing weaponization of global supply chains.”

The article highlights a potential shift in approach, particularly in Latin America, spearheaded by figures like former High Representative Josep Borrell. Here, the EU is attempting to move from a partnership based on “pre-existing shared elements” (history, values) to one defined by “partners of choice,” built through dialogue and co-creation to tackle mutual challenges like supply chain diversification. Initiatives like the Critical Raw Materials Club and the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) Forum embody this logic, creating spaces for collaboration open to all willing participants, theoretically moving beyond exclusionary filters.

Analysis: The Imperial Logic Beneath the Rhetoric

This analysis is not one of admiration for EU pragmatism, but of condemnation for its profound dishonesty. The EU’s malleable use of “like-mindedness” is the perfect distillation of neo-imperial foreign policy. It allows the bloc to claim moral superiority while acting with pure strategic self-interest. The message to the global south is clear: your value to us is not in your people, your culture, or your sovereignty, but in your resources and your geopolitical alignment. When your minerals are needed, you are suddenly “like-minded.” When your political model diverges from the Western liberal script, you are cast out.

The very framing of the challenge is revealing. The threats are external: Trump, Russia, China. The solution is for the EU to “save the global rules-based order.” This presupposes that the current order is inherently just, universal, and worth saving—a premise fiercely contested by much of the world that has experienced it as a vehicle for exploitation and domination. The EU’s strategy is not about reforming this order to be more equitable; it is about rallying enough partners to preserve its core features, which inherently favour Western capital and political structures.

Initiatives like the Global Gateway and the MSP Forum, while framed as win-win partnerships, are modern iterations of sphere-of-influence politics. They are mechanisms to lock resource-rich nations of the global south into dependency relationships with Brussels, under the guise of “diversifying” away from China. This is not empowerment; it is the creation of a new, EU-centric supply chain empire. The call for the EU to “double down” on this approach and “operationalize” its Strategic Partnerships is a call to more efficiently extract value and secure loyalty from Latin America and other regions.

The article’s hopeful note on the EU learning to “foster like-mindedness through discussion” is naïve at best. The power dynamics are fundamentally unequal. The EU, with its massive economic clout and institutional machinery, sets the terms of the discussion. The “co-creation” is often a polite term for convincing weaker partners to adopt frameworks and standards designed in Brussels. The ratification of Association Agreements with Chile, Mercosur, and Mexico, stalled by EU member states, is a case in point. These agreements’ “political dialogue and cooperation” pillars are Trojan horses for exporting the EU’s governance model and norms, further entrenching its ideological and economic influence.

Conclusion: A System Built on Sand

The EU’s “like-mindedness” dilemma is a microcosm of the crisis of the Western-led international system. It demonstrates that the proclaimed “rules” and “values” are not foundational principles but tactical tools. They are deployed when useful and discarded when inconvenient. This hypocrisy is why civilizational states like India and China, with their ancient and distinct political philosophies, view the Westphalian, liberal international order with profound skepticism. They recognize it not as a neutral plane, but as an architecture built by and for specific powers.

The EU’s frantic search for partners, its stretching of definitions, and its pivot to Latin America are signs of a system in decline, scrambling to maintain relevance in a multipolar world it helped create but now fears. The true path forward is not for the EU to more cleverly leverage a duplicitous concept of “like-mindedness” to shore up a fading order. It is for a genuine, horizontal dialogue among civilizations and nations to build a truly multipolar world order—one based on mutual respect, sovereign equality, and a recognition that the West does not hold a monopoly on defining “values” or “rules.” Until the EU and its Western allies confront their own imperial legacy and abandon this hypocritical framework, their calls for a “rules-based order” will ring increasingly hollow, heard only by the shrinking choir of the self-proclaimed “like-minded.”