In 2021, the European Union published its Joint Communication on strengthening the EU’s contribution to rules-based multilateralism—its strategy to protect the global rules-based order that proposed stronger cooperation with “like-minded” countries with whom it shared fundamental values and principles. In contrast, the EU’s strategy of diversification of partnerships in its trade and critical raw materials diplomacy refers to a diverse set of countries as “like-minded,” ranging from full-fledged democracies to authoritarian states. The contradiction in the use of like-mindedness allows the European Union to not only cooperate with traditional allies, but leverage its position to foster new partnerships across the globe.
This is critical at a moment when the Trump administration’s destruction of the Transatlantic relationship, Russia’s protracted war in Ukraine, and China’s growing weaponization of global supply chains are damaging the European Union’s geopolitical position. While the EU understands like-mindedness as a key aspect of navigating this international environment, it must leverage this framing carefully to advance its overarching goal of saving the global rules-based order. To attain this, the EU should resolutely adopt and deepen the logic of like-mindedness it is pursuing in Latin America to foster discussion, agreement, and coordinate collective action with the largest possible set of counterparts.
Understanding Like-Mindedness as a Filter
There are two understandings of like-mindedness. On the one hand, the values-based definition refers to countries that share fundamental political values such as democracy and human rights. This framing is how the EU presented likeminded-ness in its 2021 Joint Communication as well as in its security and defense partnerships with like-minded non-EU countries. However, in other domains, the EU uses likeminded-ness to refer to countries whose interests align in a specific domain. For example, the EU’s like-minded partnerships on critical raw materials with regimes that systematically violate fundamental freedoms such as Kazakhstan and Rwanda relate to the shared interests of developing resilient global supply chains.
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How the EU uses the term like-mindedness is thus fuzzy and malleable. Despite these different definitions, both notions of like-mindedness act as a filter for cooperation; the condition of sharing values or interests makes two parties suitable for cooperation. As a consequence, when shared values or interests cannot be identified, the scope of countries that can be like-minded—and therefore eligible for cooperation—is limited.
By filtering countries that do not meet the more stringent definition of like-mindedness, the EU hampers its ability to find reliable partners to support efforts to maintain the rules-based order. Indeed, in some cases like-mindedness only encompasses what is commonly referred to as “the West,” comprising the G7 and other liberal democracies such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and New Zealand. Even when adopting the looser concept of “like-mindedness” based on shared situational interests, this filter can limit collaboration on broader issues. The West needs to understand that the problems stemming from the transformation of global order cannot be solved by only collaborating with like-minded countries.
Like-mindedness as co-creation
Rather than understanding like-mindedness as a filter for engagement, the EU should foster like-mindedness through discussion and agreement to collectively tackle common challenges.
Some EU leaders are already taking this approach in its foreign policy in Latin America. In 2023, Josep Borrell, the then High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, vowed to transform EU- Latin American relations from one based on common history and values to one defined by partners of choice. Borrell recognized that, in the context of geostrategic rivalry, a partnership based on pre-existing shared elements was insufficient and that both regions needed collaborate on mutual interests to find shared solutions to shared challenges like diversifying value chains to avoid dependency. Since then, the announcements of free trade agreements and Strategic Partnerships across the region were accompanied by repeated appeals to the like-mindedness that binds the EU to countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, in a shared future.
The EU’s proposal for a Critical Raw Materials Club and its co-leadership of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) Forum follow the same logic. These forums are global in scope, encompassing all countries willing to strengthen global supply chains. Here, like-mindedness does not exclude potential members, but rather refers to the trading zone between resource-rich and resource-hungry countries where they can collaborate to attain common objectives. The MSP Forum for instance is a space for exchanging information on opportunities, priorities, and challenges on critical raw materials. It includes several Latin American countries such as Argentina, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Peru.
Leveraging Like-Mindedness
The current global context demands a reflection on how the EU can maintain the rules-based international order. Here, like-mindedness can prove crucial, but requires that the EU double down on approaching it as an element that can be fostered so as to promote engagement with a considerably wider group of countries in the pursuit of a desirable future.
In the short term, the EU should take decisive steps in operationalizing its existing Strategic Partnerships on critical raw materials with Latin American countries. These partnerships propose developing a roadmap for the implementation of the partnership by jointly identifying and monitoring actions for cooperation through a dedicated working group. Moreover, they propose annual meetings to revise these roadmaps and discuss new directions for strategic collaboration. The ReSourceEU Action Plan is a step in this direction, as it accelerates strategic partnerships by increasing technical assistance, guaranteeing and blending financial instruments, and offering win-win investments through the EU’s Global Gateway initiative.
The EU should also focus its efforts on pushing Member States to ratify the Association Agreements with Chile, Mercosur, and Mexico. These agreements have three pillars: trade, political dialogue, and cooperation. The political dialogue and cooperation pillars propose the creation of mechanisms for the intensification of cooperation in a wide range of areas including security, climate change, justice, sustainable development, human rights, and democracy. These could create new channels for dialogue between heads of state, ministers, parliaments, and civil society groups, including NGOs, trade unions, business and employers’ organizations. The establishment of these forums for cooperation depends on the ratification by the EU’s Member States. Nevertheless, a majority has still not done so, missing out an opportunity to foster like-mindedness across these strategic domains between both regions.
The challenges that threaten the international rules-based order require the EU to engage with the widest possible group of counterparts. For this, the EU needs to deepen the logic of like-mindedness pursued in Latin America by understanding it as a tool that can expand its partners in support of the global order. While Brussels has been successful in striking Agreements and Strategic Partnerships with Latin American countries, more needs to be done to fully realize their potential for the fostering of like-mindedness. The EU needs to take decisive steps to operationalize these mechanisms and create a forum for meaningful discussion where actions and goals can be co-created.
