ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I analyse the like-minded states’ role as drivers of a rights-based EU development policy and the inherent ambiguity following from their commitment of making human rights part and parcel of their strategy while at the same time promoting partner country ownership. I discuss this ambiguity through a case study of the like-minded states’ intermediate resistance to and subsequent acceptance of the EU’s aid effectiveness reforms. While existing literature has interpreted resistance to EU development policy as a result of competing interests and identities, I find that the resistance followed from a different normative viewpoint of how fair aid effectiveness policy should be carried out, to that of other EU member states. The like-minded member-states did not accept the EU’s reform proposals until the policy included the concern for country ownership and flexibility to allow for difference. Yet, the chapter also unveils that there are weaknesses connected to the like-minded states’ interpretation of the ownership principle. It highlights the usefulness of applying a global justice perspective to study the EU’s development policy, facilitating a move beyond so-called ‘idealist motivations’ for aid and creating analytical standards that nuance our understanding of the competing normative claims that donors make in their aid policies.
