The BRICS group of emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) begins today in Johannesburg its XV Summit of Heads of State and Government with an economic forum that will be attended in person by all the leaders of the bloc except the Russian president Vladimir Putin, who will intervene due to interference due to the international arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
The event will be attended by the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; China, Xi Jinping; and South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa; as well as the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. While Putin will do it by videoconference. The Russian representation will be in charge of its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov. If the Russian president had set foot in Johannesburg, South Africa, as a member state of the ICC, he was obliged to arrest him.
On Wednesday, the leaders will meet in a plenary session where they are expected to discuss issues such as the expansion of the BRICS. Some forty countries have expressed interest in joining that club, according to the South African government, which led the bloc's first enlargement in 2010 and holds the group's rotating presidency this year.
Rising global tensions sparked by the Ukraine war and growing rivalry between China and the United States have given new impetus to strengthening the bloc, which has at times suffered from internal divisions and a lack of coherent vision.
"An enlarged BRICS will represent a diverse group of nations with different political systems that share a common desire for a more balanced global order," South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech ahead of the meetings.
Another of the summit's priority issues will be the "de-dollarization" of their economies, that is, the encouragement of local currencies to trade at the expense of the dollar, a position supported by the New Development Bank (NDB), established by the BRICS in 2015.
The dollar has gained ground against emerging market currencies since Russia invaded Ukraine and the US Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to combat inflation in early 2022, a move that made dollar debt more expensive. expensive for those countries.
The creation of a common BRICS currency does not appear to be on the Johannesburg agenda, an initiative that Lula enthusiastically defends, according to South African organizers.
Expansion has long been a goal of bloc heavyweight China, which hopes more members will give the grouping more weight. However, this issue has become a point of contention.
Russia is willing to incorporate new members to counter its diplomatic isolation due to the invasion of Ukraine. South Africa has also expressed its support. India, which is wary of Chinese dominance and has warned against rash expansion, has "positive intent and an open mind," Foreign Affairs Secretary Vinay Kwatra said on Monday. Brazil, for its part, worries that the growth of the BRICS will dilute their influence.
On Thursday, the closing day of the summit, the BRICS Friends Leaders' Dialogue will take place, in which the bloc's leaders will exchange ideas with their counterparts from other countries.
South Africa has invited 67 leaders from the Global South to the event, including the presidents of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and Bolivia, Luis Arce.
Twenty dignitaries from international organizations are also invited, such as the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, and the Chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat.
A large presence of African leaders is expected in honor of the summit's motto: "BRICS and Africa: Partnership for mutually accelerated growth, sustainable development and inclusive multilateralism."
Brazil, Russia, India and China created the BRIC group in 2006, to which South Africa joined in 2010 by adding the letter S to the acronym. The bloc represents more than 42% of the world's population and 30% of the planet's territory, as well as 23% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and 18% of global trade.
Although the potential expansion of BRICS remains up in the air, the bloc's promise to champion the developing Global South and offer an alternative to a world order dominated by wealthy Western nations is already finding resonance. Of the more than 40 countries South Africa says have expressed interest in joining, almost two dozen have formally applied to join.
