By Paul Jouvenet, jurist and essayist. Eurasia Business News, August 23, 2023

The BRICS countries have agreed on the expansion plan of the group, they have adopted a corresponding document, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said.

“We have reached an agreement on the issue of expansion. We have adopted a document that sets out the provisions and principles, as well as the processes for considering applications from countries wishing to become members of BRICS“, announced the Minister.

According to Naledi Pandor, the BRICS leaders will talk in more detail about the agreement reached before the end of the summit on August 24.

The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on August 23 that the country fully supports the expansion of BRICS on the basis of consensus.

Now the BRICS includes five countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. In mid-August, the South African authorities announced that more than 40 states had expressed their desire to join the organization, 23 of which had submitted official applications.

On August 21, China and South Africa supported the expansion of the BRICS. According to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the expanded alliance will be “a diverse group of countries with different political systems that share a common desire for a more balanced world order.“

At the end of July, diplomatic sources told us that India and Brazil opposed China’s attempt to quickly expand the BRICS format, as they fear lower influence. Brazil feared that the desire of dozens of countries to join the alliance reinforces Western concerns that the organization wants to become a counterweight to the United States and the European Union. New Delhi, in turn, wanted to see stricter rules for joining the organization, to keep the BRICS work coherent.

In early August, the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva confirmed that he supports the entry of new states into the BRICS, among which he has named Argentina and Saudi Arabia as possible candidates. The Brazilian head of state stressed that the forum should promote new ways of doing trade with fairer mechanisms.

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The Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that Moscow is positive about the possible expansion of BRICS, but stressed that “this problem must be approached very carefully.” The Russian side proposed to define the procedures and requirements for candidates for accession.

Read also : Brazil’s President Supports BRICS Expansion

On August 22, the BRICS summit opened in Johannesburg (South Africa). This is the XV forum of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, where cooperation between countries in the geopolitical and economic fields is discussed.

The BRICS could be the G7 of emerging countries and the Global South and change the world order by promoting multipolarity and multilateralism. The most important is not the expansion of the BRICS, but the growing influence of the group’s decisions on the global economy and the strengthening of its voice on the international financial scene, thanks in particular to the New Development Bank created in 2015, opposite the IMF and the World Bank. The BRICS bank has already financed 98 infrastructure development projects worth a total of $33 billion since 2015. The attractiveness of the BRICS as a “balancing force in world affairs” is now at an unprecedented level. By 2030, the BRICS could together account for 50% of global GDP.

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© Copyright 2023 – Paul Jouvenet, jurist and essayist.