The group of five Brics wants to expand and add new members. But for what criteria and from when? There should be answers to these questions today.
Johannesburg – The summit of the important emerging countries Brics ends today in South Africa’s economic metropolis Johannesburg. The focus of the three-day top meeting is the expansion of the group. The heads of state of the five-party alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are expected to make specific statements on this during their final declaration.
They could decide admission criteria for new members. It is also conceivable that there will be indications as to when additional countries will be included – in order to make the group “Brics plus” with numerous newcomers. In this way, Brics, as the center of power in the Global South, wants to counterbalance other forums of economically strong countries such as the G7. The Brics countries also want to reduce their dependence on the US dollar as the global reserve currency. According to Brics, it already accounts for 42 percent of the world’s population and about a quarter of global economic output.
Longer consultations than planned
The final announcement of the summit was originally planned for Wednesday, but was then postponed at short notice. But the ministers of the member states would have to consult for a longer time, according to the South African government.
According to South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, around 40 countries have expressed a more or less binding interest in Brics membership, 23 of them concrete – including Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt, Iran and Bangladesh.
China’s President Xi Jinping, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi are attending the summit in person. Russian President Vladimir Putin is connected via video. If he were to arrive, he would face arrest for alleged war crimes during the Russian invasion of Ukraine under the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant in The Hague.
Ukraine war in focus
The second day of the summit on Wednesday was overshadowed by the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. The presidents of Brazil and South Africa again called for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. “We don’t underestimate the difficulties of achieving peace, but neither can we be indifferent to the death and destruction that happens every day,” Lula said.
Ramaphosa also advocated solving the Ukraine war through negotiations. Ramaphosa leads an African peace initiative to end the war, with mediation efforts in Moscow and Kiev. At the beginning of the year, Lula also campaigned for an international mediation initiative to resolve the conflict. However, both initiatives remained without recognizable success.
Russia has been waging a war of aggression against Ukraine for the past 18 months. Including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, Russia currently occupies around 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory. In the course of an ongoing counter-offensive, the Ukrainian army is attempting to liberate the occupied areas, also with the help of Western weapons.
Putin justifies himself
Ukraine demands the withdrawal of Russian troops from its territory before the start of possible negotiations. The West is refusing the so-called long-term security guarantees demanded by Russia, which are about the non-expansion of NATO, and above all the non-admission of Ukraine.
Putin now used the Brics summit to justify the conflict. Although he himself ordered the invasion of the neighboring country on February 24, 2022, he once again blamed the West, claiming: “The desire of some countries to maintain their dominance in the world has led to the serious crisis in Ukraine .”
The Kremlin boss wants to organize the next summit of the Brics states himself. In his speech on Wednesday, he invited the representatives of the other Brics member states to the Russian city of Kazan for October 2024. The specific date should be discussed through diplomatic channels. dpa
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