BRICS includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South
Africa. It will hold its first ministerial meeting on Friday and Saturday in
preparation for heads of state summit in August. This year's gathering will be
held in Cape Town, South Africa.
Around 20 non-BRICS foreign ministers will be in attendance
at the end of the week, with many countries actively expressing an interest in
becoming members.
During last year's BRICS summit in China, a strong message
was delivered of putting development on top of everything else on the
international agenda. As Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out at the UN
General Assembly, the goal of the initiative is that no country or individual
should be left behind in pursuing development.
As the rotating chair switches to South Africa, among the themes
of this year's summit is multilateralism in promoting international
development.
It's no
surprise that the success of the BRICS mechanism has attracted many like-minded
nations who are expressing a desire to join, from the UAE in Asia to Algeria in
Africa and Argentina in Latin America.
Among other issues on the agenda at the BRICS summit in
August is increased economic autonomy. Another is plans to decide on admitting
new members and what criteria they would have to meet.
Talks on the enlargement of the bloc are mainly based on the
interest of other countries over the self-made economic prosperity of its
members, as other nations who seek BRICS membership are growing tired of
dealing with the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.
According to Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador to
BRICS, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran are in
talks to join the economic bloc.
“What will be discussed is the expansion of BRICS and the
modalities of how this will happen,” Bloomberg has cited his as saying.
“Thirteen countries have formally asked to join and another
six have asked informally. We are getting applications to join every
day.”
Since
its formation as the four-member BRIC in 2006, the bloc has only added one new
member, South Africa, in 2010, which made it BRICS.
In March, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said
international interest in the BRICS group was huge, Saudi Arabia is one,
she said. Others are United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Algeria,
and Argentina, as well as Mexico and Nigeria."
Iran is said to have already applied to join BRICS and its
foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has confirmed he will be
participating in the Cape Town meeting at the official invitation of South
Africa.
The latest submissions for membership give substance to the
argument of the rapidly changing global developments following the Ukraine,
Yemen and Afghanistan wars.
Among
the attractive aspects of BRICS is that nations view the alliance of emerging
markets as an alternative, and not necessarily a challenge, to a US-led world
order which is weakening, as experts point out, because of America's unilateral
foreign policy blunders.
Experts also argue that Europe lacks any sovereign world
vision, as witnessed by the Ukraine war, where it has taken its marching orders
from Washington and failed to bring peace to Ukraine, as European households
suffer from record inflation as a direct result of the conflict on its
doorstep.
The Ukraine war has had a direct impact at international
scale when it comes to food and energy.
In the
absence of any willpower to stamp its authority on regional affairs, let alone
global affairs, Europe has, in essence, failed the international community as a
reliable economic partner, forcing many to seek alternatives to the West.
Iran for instance has the second largest gas reserves in the
world, something that Europe is desperately searching for, but has not
approached Tehran about, because of its bizarre compliance to illegal US unilateral
sanctions. It now looks that the much-needed Iranian commodity will most likely
be heading elsewhere.
While
BRICS has its own bank (New Development Bank), it is not as large as the World
Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but this could be down to just a
matter of time as more countries seek to join the economic bloc.
The World Bank and the IMF were founded back in the 1940's
and have failed in their declared goals of creating a more stable and
prosperous global economy.
The austerity that comes with loans has brought increasingly
high levels of poverty and inequality to countries who borrowed money from
them. Just ask the people of Greece or Argentina. Critics accuse the US of
having unfair influence on the World Back and the IMF.
On the other hand, the New Development Bank or the BRICS
Bank, which was just established in 2015 and with its stated aim to help build
a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable future for the planet is appealing.
It may sound like a good advertising slogan, but the facts
on the ground show BRICS is attracting a record number of clients seeking to
expand the bloc.
According
to reports, BRICS is in talks with Saudi Arabia to become a member of its New
Development Bank. While Saudi Arabia has yet to confirm this, such reports were
unheard of just a year ago.
The
idea itself makes sense as most oil purchasing clients are now based in the
East and Latin America. But it will be a major setback for the United States,
which will see an agonizing decline of petrodollars.
In the early 1970s, Washington and Riyadh reached an
agreement that Saudi oil sales to all international clients be sold in dollars
in exchange for American military protection, something that the US failed to
adhere to in the Saudi conflict with Yemen.
Today,
Saudi Arabia is in talks with Beijing to sell its oil to China in the Yuan and
has restored diplomatic ties with Iran in another blow to the US and its
extremely mischievous proxy in the region Israel.
Should the Kingdom become a New Development Bank member, it
would be a boost to the bank as well as for Saudi Arabia itself, as BRICS
members, among other things, provide a safety net in times of difficulty.
For instance, BRICS members have not bowed to NATO pressure
to join the sanctions regime against Russia.
Brazilian
President Luiz InĂ¡cio Lula da Silva has argued that BRICS nations should
establish their own common currency, highlighting the advantages of such a
unified economic measure that would be independent of the US dollar.
Under a US dollar dominated world order, prosperity has been
taken over by poverty while peace has been replaced by violence.
In April, BRICS' deputy ministers and special envoys held a
meeting in Cape Town to discuss, among other issues, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, as well as developments in the Persian Gulf states, Syria, Iraq,
Lebanon, Libya, Western Sahara and Yemen.
Such platforms provide an opportunity to bring emerging
markets together to discuss both the financial and political aspects of the
world.