Kosher for Europe, Moral Bankruptcy for the Rest
Kosher for Europe, Moral Bankruptcy for the Rest
Embedded Files
THIS IS AN ARTICLE WRITTEN PURELY AS AN OPINION OF CURRENT AFFAIRS BY THE AUTHOR
Share this article!
13 July 2025
Last Updated: 15 July 2025 - 16:08 IST
Chaitanya Nitin Harak
NATO Leaders Conference | NATO
Europe likes to see itself as the world’s moral compass — the defender of democracy, human rights, multilateralism, and climate justice. It crafts sanctions, drafts declarations, and lectures the Global South with an air of post-colonial humility laced with postmodern righteousness. But peel away the speeches, and what you find is a system held together by contradiction: strategic dependency on the United States (U.S.), energy hypocrisy, selective humanitarianism, and the self-serving use of the G7 to rubber-stamp whatever suits Europe’s agenda.
This crisis of credibility is not about Europe’s lack of institutions or norms — it’s about the glaring mismatch in the values it proclaims and the policies it pursues. In short, Europe has become a continent of paradoxical entitlement.
NATO: The Alliance Europe Won’t Leave — and Can’t Own
For years, European leaders have called for “strategic autonomy.” French President Emmanuel Macron famously declared NATO “brain-dead” in 2019 and urged Europe to take control of its own security. The war in Ukraine seemed like the ultimate catalyst — a wake-up call for the continent to get serious about defense and coordination. Yet the policymakers remain embroiled in pushing paper and making speeches alone.
Today, however, NATO has grown stronger. Not due to European policy coherence, but through sheer American dominance. Germany’s much-touted Zeitenwende (turning point) promised a revolution in defense thinking — yet remains hamstrung by bureaucratic inertia and fiscal caution. Eastern European states, wary of Russia, remain firmly tethered to the U.S. security umbrella. They shouted for years, look Russia will attack, yet kept pushing Russia to the brink of insecurity. NATO grows even today, when the threat of the USSR it originally formed to counter, no longer exists. Europe talks of respecting sovereignty, of recognizing independence, but in practice, it continues to subcontract its strategic core to Washington. Even today, in reality, Europe remains a military vassal for the U.S. with its military bases spread throughout the continent.
This double game — performative independence with actual dependence — is not just unsustainable, it’s embarrassing. If Europe can’t even secure its own borders without American jets and bases, what credibility does it have in demanding respect from other powers?
Oil, Sanctions, and Loopholes
For decades, Europe has remained the largest global buyer of Russian energy. Today, nowhere is European hypocrisy more visible than in its energy policy post-Ukraine. The EU imposed sweeping sanctions on Russian oil and gas, declaring that funding Putin’s war machine was morally indefensible. But when faced with the hard truth of its own dependence, Europe found a clever workaround: buy Russian oil after it’s been refined in India.
The same oil it bought for decades — now rerouted through Indian refineries — flows back into Europe, helping countries maintain their energy needs while keeping up the appearance of moral clarity. Meanwhile, Indian purchases of discounted Russian crude were met with scathing critiques in Western media and policy circles, accusing New Delhi of undermining sanctions and enabling authoritarian aggression. India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar highlighted this double standard in clear terms: “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems, but the world's problems are not Europe's.”
That statement was made not just to defend India’s oil policy — it exposed a fundamental flaw in Europe’s worldview: that its actions are always justified by moral necessity, while others’ actions must always be scrutinized for hidden intent.
The G7: Europe’s Moral Laundromat
The G7 has become the preferred stage for this selective morality. Ostensibly a gathering of like-minded democracies shaping global norms, the G7 often serves as a legitimacy laundromat for European interests. Whatever the EU needs — sanctions, carbon taxes, financial controls — once it passes through the G7 filter, it becomes “rules-based.” Take climate finance. The EU preaches a just transition and pressures Global South countries to meet aggressive climate targets. But when it invests in fossil fuel infrastructure abroad — such as natural gas projects in Senegal or Egypt — it’s framed as “bridging the transition.” When similar investments come from the Global South, however, they are swiftly labeled as “carbon colonialism” or dismissed as geopolitical opportunism.
External Affairs Minister of India - S. Jaishankar | PIB
Or consider global financial governance. G7-led sanctions on Russian assets, SWIFT exclusion, and central bank seizures are hailed as necessary tools of moral warfare. But when BRICS countries talk about alternative financial systems or local currency trade, they are accused of destabilizing the global order.
It’s a tired script: what’s kosher for the G7 is criminal for the rest.
Policing the Global South, Ignoring the Mirror
Europe’s moral policing of the Global South only deepens this credibility crisis. African and Asian states are often pressured to condemn Russia, adopt Western-aligned policy positions, or implement IMF-prescribed reforms — usually without any meaningful consultation or power-sharing. Yet the same Europe that demands democratic fidelity tolerates autocracy when convenient. It signs border control deals with Tunisia, props up militias in Libya to stop migrants, and continues arms sales to Gulf monarchies. Its borders are militarized, its migration regime securitized, and its economic outreach often paternalistic. During COVID-19, Europe hoarded vaccines. In climate negotiations, it delayed or diluted loss-and-damage compensation. In trade, it imposes “green tariffs” that disadvantage African exporters, all while declaring itself a partner in sustainable development.
This is not leadership — it’s moral exceptionalism. A belief that Europe’s values need only apply when convenient.
A Crisis of Legitimacy, Not Just Power
Europe is not weak because it lacks tools. It has powerful institutions, economic weight, and a rich diplomatic tradition. But power without coherence is hollow. The more Europe speaks of universality while practicing selectivity, the more it alienates not just the Global South — but itself. The paradox of European entitlement lies in its refusal to accept that leadership must be earned, not inherited. Strategic autonomy cannot coexist with dependence. Moral authority cannot be declared — it must be demonstrated. And international rules lose their legitimacy when they are weaponized by some and imposed on others. As the Global South grows more confident, and alternative alignments like BRICS+, SCO, and G20 South gain momentum, Europe’s rhetorical superiority will count for less. What it needs is not more declarations — but more consistency.
The Bottom Line:
If Europe wants to be taken seriously as a global leader, it must abandon the myth of exceptionalism. Entitlement without accountability is not influence, it’s inertia.
And as India’s EAM S. Jaishankar made clear: the rest of the world is no longer buying it.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse