BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. Originally identified to highlight investment opportunities, the grouping evolved into an actual geopolitical bloc, with their governments meeting annually at formal summits and coordinating multilateral policies since 2009. Bilateral relations among BRICS are conducted mainly based on non-interference, equality, and mutual benefit.
The founding countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China held the first summit in Yekaterinburg in 2009, with South Africa joining the bloc a year later. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates joined the organisation on 1 January 2024. Saudi Arabia is yet to officially join, but participates in the organisation's activities as an invited nation. Recently, Turkey one of the big economies in the world has reportedly submitted its request to join the bloc.
To shed more light on the issue, MNA interviewed the political science associate professor of Milan Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Dr. Pastori Gianluca.
Following is the full text of the interview:
NATO member Turkey has recently applied for BRICS membership. Earlier, other big economies, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, joined the BRICS. Why is the desire to join the bloc increasing among world countries, especially among Asian and African countries?
Joining BRICs can be an interesting option for member countries to foster integration, fuel economic development, and possibly raise their political profile. However, despite claiming the willingness to empower the ‘Global South’ and build a competing multipolar world order, BRICS still face problems elaborating a viable common policy and preserving real unity. For Turkey, applying to BRICS can be a way to reassert President Erdogan’s ‘independent’, ‘360-degrees’ foreign policy. For other countries, the economic component seems to prevail, not to mention the appeal of a group where bilateral relations are based on non-interference, equality, and mutual benefit, allowing some governments not to implement the domestic reforms usually required by Western and Western-minded organizations to enlarge their membership.
How did the US and its European allies’ policy in using the dollar and global banking system as a political weapon against their rivals motivates the world countries to look for alternatives like BRICS?
More than the outcome of a planned strategy, the current dollar’s dominance in the international financial markets is the product of long-term historical dynamics, just like the British pound’s dominance before World War II. Today, BRICS can hardly challenge this state of things, although the renminbi’s global relevance has steadily increased. As stated above, I think the main reason why many countries join BRICS is the possibility of accessing a network of financial institutions (such as the BRICS Development Bank) posing fewer conditionalities than bodies like the Word Bank or the IMF, or the opportunity for developing privileged bilateral ties with lenders like China, which have a similar ‘non-interfering’ approach. However, this strategy has already shown some limits, such as unexpected costs or cached forms of conditionality.
How do you see the future of BRICS in the long term? Can we expect a new order?
Generally speaking, the international system has already entered a multipolar order, and BRICS is one of its elements. However, the group must overcome several internal difficulties to become a first-class political player. Argentina’s decision to withdraw its application highlights how problems remain. The same is true for Saudi Arabia’s uncertain attitude. Deeply entrenched rivalries among members affect BRICS’s cohesion. Moreover, as noted, several countries entered BRICS mainly for economic reasons and are only partly interested in the group’s political role. It is hard to say what the future of BRICS will be. We must remember that, despite the ambition to foster the ‘Global South’ role in international affairs, BRICS are essentially an intergovernmental coalition guided by the ebbs and flows of each member’s national strategy.
Interview by Payman Yazdani
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