BRICS

The Brics economic group admitted six new States as members during its XV summit, held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The bloc made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will be joined in January 2024 by Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, applauded the expansion and attributed an unquestionable “authority” to the bloc, but he was unable to get the island to be included in the organization.

This is an unprecedented expansion of the Brics, a group that emerged in 2006 after a meeting of foreign ministers from the then emerging world economies, and expanded in 2011 with the inclusion of South Africa.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, host of the summit, assured that the original members had reached an agreement for the expansion of the body and defined “guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures” to incorporate other countries. He added, during a press conference, in which the presidents Luiz Inácio also participated Lula da Silva, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – representing Russian President Vladimir Putin – that a “consensus” had been reached on the first phase of the expansion.

Díaz-Canel applauded the expansion and attributed an unquestionable “authority” to the bloc, but he was unable to get the Island to be included in the organization

The Brics received “formal” requests from 40 states – including Cuba – interested in joining the group. In Latin America, Venezuela, Bolivia and Honduras also tried unsuccessfully to be accepted.

Ramaphosa, one of the promoters of the expansion, assured that the Brics are trying to gain more weight in the international context and ensure that the organization has as much influence as the United States and the European Union (EU), a vision shared by other States such as China or Russia.

The newly included countries have strong economic relations with the original members. An obvious case is Argentina, Brazil’s main economic partner and whose inclusion Da Silva celebrated as an “important” business opportunity.

China and Russia, two of the founding states, expressed their interest in solidifying the body’s influence. Putin – who did not attend the summit for not running the risk of being arrested as a war criminal after the arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court – stressed by videoconference the importance of seeking a “single means of payment” for banking transactions between the members. “It is a complex issue, but one way or another we are going to move towards a solution,” he summarized.

Regarding Miguel Díaz-Canel, who attended the summit as leader for the time of the Group of 77 plus China, insistently defended the New Development Bank, an initiative of the Brics, which he praised as an “alternative” to other financial institutions, which he accused of “reproducing schemes of submission” to countries like the yours.

Putin stressed by videoconference the importance of seeking a “single means of payment” for banking transactions between members

During the development of the summit, the Cuban ruler approached China, one of his main economic and political partners, with particular interest. The president guaranteed that the relationship between the communist parties of both countries was better than ever, and that he intended to “implement the important consensus” negotiated in November 2022 with Beijing, during what his critics called the “alms tour” of Turkey. , Russia and China.

The expansion of the Brics has also aroused the interest of the European Union, whose Foreign Ministry has assured that it “took note” of what happened at the summit and recalled that several of the European countries maintain important relations with their members. Peter Stano, spokesman for Foreign Affairs of the European Commission, recalled that none of the Twenty-seven is a member of the Brics and that the decision – and its consequences – is the exclusive responsibility of its members.

So far, the States of the group represent more than 42% of the world population and account for 23% of the gross domestic product and 18% of global trade.

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