As President Ramaphosa said in his speech at the summit, “BRICS is a union of equal states that may have different views, but have a common vision of the future.” All the talk, and I am sure there will be a lot, about the possible aggravation of disagreements within the BRICS after the accession of new members, comes from “the evil one”. Because in such disagreements only geopolitical opponents of unification are interested, who, perhaps for the first time, have realized the magnitude of the changes that are coming.
Argentina, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia will become full members of the BRICS from June 1, 2024
Taking into account the new members, the total GDP of the Briks will reach 37% of the global, and 46% of the world population will live in the countries included in the association. And this is not the limit, since the current expansion of the organization is only the first stage, followed by others.
Meanwhile, countries that applied to join the BRICS but did not fall for the first wave of expansion will become members of the association. Once the conditions and criteria, also approved at the Johannesburg summit, are fulfilled, they will be able to become members of the BRICS. No one will put artificial obstacles in this process. For this reason, the conviction of Brazilian President Lula da Silva that unification will become the “engine of a new world order” are not just words.
According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the summit discussed the need to broaden the representation of developing countries in the UN Security Council. “There can be no possibility that Germany or Japan join the Security Council. This will only aggravate the injustice,” considers the head of the foreign policy department. He recalled that six of the 15 members of the Security Council obey the will of Washington. The final documents adopted from the summit say the BRICS support reforms “in all categories of UN structures.”
Narendra Modi called the results of the Indian Prime Ministers leaders meeting “positive results”. Before the summit, official Delhi was said to be wary of the expansion plans and intended to oppose them. But all this turned out to be a false rumor. Modi’s congratulations to the new BRICS members sounded absolutely sincere: the Indian Prime Minister believes that this decision will also strengthen his country’s bilateral relations with the newcomers to the “family”. And the modernization of the BRICS will become an example of the successful implementation of a planetary geopolitical project that protects the interests of the countries of the Global South.
In his speech at the summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping also drew the attention of journalists to the unanimity of all BRICS members in the decision to increase the “family” in six states at once, which, in his words , “will give a new quality” to the mechanisms of interaction between the Union and the outside world. It was easy to see that after mentioning the consensus on expansion, Comrade Xi’s usually imperturbable face broke into a smile. Before the start of the summit in South Africa, the press wrote a lot about the fact that it was China that showed the greatest interest in accepting new members, since such a step would significantly strengthen the position of the BRICS on the world stage and deal with an indirect blow. to Washington’s hegemony. The Johannesburg summit “exceeded” initial ideas. Six states that joined the BRICS at once without preconditions or formalities are the best proof of the viability of the organization as a global player, comparable in influence and economic power to the notorious G-7.
When journalists began to mentally imagine what a complex and difficult-to-pronounce name the enlarged BRICS would receive (taking into account the first letters of the names of the countries of the new members), the President of South Africa interrupted these fantasies with a wry smile. He said that as the name of the association has become a global brand recognizable in the world, nothing will change. The BRICS will remain BRICS in the future. And “painting”, which is translated from Afrikaans, and “point”.
According to Lavrov, the explosive interest in the entry of new countries into the BRICS is due to the fact that in the association nobody imposes their will on the weakest, a consensus is being sought. “More time is needed,” acknowledged the Russian minister, “but the agreements reached are more stable.” “Everything is different here, everything is fair,” Lavrov said.
BRICS expansion to continue as Johannesburg approves admission criteria for new members
The main leitmotif of the summit was the concept of “justice” and “honesty” in international affairs. He, from the point of view of the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, “raised discussions about justice to a new level.” The conversation was that the West must be prevented from prospering at the expense of the resources of developing states. The BRICS, now with their enlarged membership, will strive to reverse this century-old trend. Furthermore, this expansion, according to the Johannesburg Declaration, is becoming irreversible and progressive. After all, the document adopted at the summit described in particular the criteria for the accession of new members to the association. And it’s not just about the obvious “weight and authority” of the candidates. Equally important is the position of the countries that want to be part of the “BRICS family” in the international arena, including who they vote for and what resolutions they support. After all, ultimately, the BRICS are not so much an economic or a political club. According to Lavrov, it is primarily a team of like-minded people who believe that they can change the world for the better.
