BRICS leaders agree on principles for expanding organization

The expected leitmotif of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg was the issue of expanding the union. Dozens of officially submitted applications for membership were waiting for a decision. And it followed: according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Africa, Naledi Pandor, the summit participants agreed on the issue of expansion. Moreover, from the speeches of the leaders of the countries participating in the association, it followed that they all support the expansion of the organization, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was previously ranked among the opponents of expansion.

It is not yet clear what exactly the principles of expansion were agreed upon by the leaders of the countries. South African President Ramaphosa will soon announce [о критериях для вступления в БРИКС]. This is the prerogative of the South African presidency [в организации]. I can say that the news is expected to be good,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Vedomosti, without specifying the time of the South African leader’s statement.

All the speeches of the BRICS leaders (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) at the plenary session of the organization’s summit on August 23 in South Africa emphasized the peace-loving nature of this organization and its readiness to contribute to global development. Speaking via videoconference (in person, Russia was represented at the summit by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov), Russian President Vladimir Putin separately thanked its members for their contribution to finding a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian crisis. He recalled that after South Africa, Russia is becoming the BRICS chairman country and plans to hold the next summit at the level of leaders in October 2024.

According to Putin, “during our chairmanship, we intend to do everything to effectively contribute to the implementation of the decisions taken at the current summit, including those related to expanding the circle of participants in the association.”

On August 23, it became known about the plans of the New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS to issue bonds denominated in rupees in the amount of $2.5 billion to finance the organization’s projects. This was stated at the plenary session by the financial director of the NBR, Leslie Maasdorp, who, however, did not provide details. And Indian Prime Minister Modi, who watched the successful landing on the moon of the descent module of the interplanetary station Chandrayaan-3 after the end of the meeting, proposed the creation of a space consortium of the BRICS member countries. As a result of the summit, it is expected to adopt the traditional final document for meetings of club leaders – the Johannesburg Declaration, the text of which, quite possibly, will reflect the agreed initiatives.

Acceptance criteria for new members of the organization may be related to the scale and nature of the economy of the applicant countries, as well as the political obligations of new members, says Vasily Kashin, director of the HSE Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies. These commitments should probably also support a number of political positions that were previously recorded in the BRICS documents, the expert believes.

Among such positions, according to him, are the calls for global governance reform, multilateralism, UN reform, fair free trade, recorded in the Beijing Declaration adopted at the end of the BRICS summit in 2022. “I think that at least new members should agree with these guidelines,” Kashin believes.

The main economic leitmotif of the BRICS during the next year of the Russian chairmanship will be the increase in trade settlements in national currencies, Yaroslav Lisovolik, founder of BRICS + Analytics, a member of the Russian International Affairs Council, believes. The expert noted that for more efficient use of national currencies, it is necessary, among other things, to reduce customs barriers. He also did not rule out the use of settlements in national currencies with the BRICS+ countries that are going to join the union. “Much more can be done, we need to expand the agenda of economic cooperation. Financial markets will follow the activities of the BRICS more closely. The club needs to think about how to build a communication policy in relation to them,” Lissovolik emphasized.

The expert also noted that the recent statement by NDB Chairman Dilma Rousseff (former President of Brazil) to limit the bank’s investments in Russia due to the threat of sanctions may complicate the formation of the NDB’s loan portfolio. At the same time, Lissovolik is confident that these and other risks can be minimized by alternative financing mechanisms and other joint instruments of the BRICS member countries.

Simultaneous participation of India in the American project “Artemis” for the construction of a station in deep space and in future BRICS space initiatives does not contradict anyone’s interests, Andrei Ionin, corresponding member of the Academy of Cosmonautics, believes. He explains that New Delhi’s proposal to create a BRICS space research consortium is not only feasible, but also lays the foundation for the future of expanding cooperation between participating countries in the space sector, creating a common satellite Internet system and a joint lunar program. In particular, the satellite Internet system, as Ionin notes, is one of the key elements of the digital sovereignty of the BRICS member countries. Nevertheless, the expert noted, BRICS will be open to space partnerships, including with the United States. “Forcing countries to choose is Western style. On the contrary, it is necessary to encourage joint projects, since the exploration of the Moon and space is the goal of all mankind, and not of any single country,” Ionin concluded.