The alliance made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, popularly known as BRICS, has started on Tuesday a long-awaited meeting of leaders in which the main protagonists have already begun to send messages in favor of consolidating themselves as a counterweight to the Western blocs. and to open up to new partners.
Together, these five countries “represent a third of the world economy”, something that the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, wanted to claim, who sees room for the BRICS to sit “equally” at the same table as the Union European and United States.
Lula aspires to organize the countries of the south, without implying “a counterweight to the G7 or the G20.” For this, he has highlighted the importance of adding new partners, one of the main tasks of the meeting that began in Johannesburg and from which, among other issues, admission criteria must emerge.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is hosting a summit that was also attended by his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The great absentee is the Russian Vladimir Putin, who is under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in Ukraine and who has delegated his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.
Xi and Ramaphosa have appeared before the media at the end of a bilateral meeting, to make it clear that they want to continue strengthening ties for the sake of “multilateralism” and the search for new ways of collaboration. One of the main objectives is to increase trade between the BRICS and encourage the use of their own currencies, to the detriment of the dollar.
More than thirty countries are participating in the event, in which the United Nations and regional blocs such as the African Union will be present.
