BRICS Foreign Ministers Meet in South Africa

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Facts

  • The foreign ministers from the BRICS ['Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa'] — the group of emerging economies — have gathered for a two-day meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, to hold talks on deepening ties ahead of the bloc's summit in Johannesburg in August.1
  • South Africa's Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor, who chairs the ministerial meeting, also invited fifteen of her counterparts from Africa and other global south countries to attend a 'Friends of BRICS' meeting on Friday.2
  • Pandor and her BRICS counterparts from Brazil, Russia, India, and China, are expected to discuss the expansion of the multilateral alliance, which 19 countries — including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, the UAE, Argentina, and Indonesia — are seeking to join.3
  • The BRICS foreign ministers will also reportedly hold talks on local currency trading among the bloc's members and on steps aimed at establishing a potential common currency to decouple from the US dollar.4
  • The meeting comes amid rising tensions between South Africa and the US over the country's close ties with Russia, and after the International Criminal Court in March issued an arrest warrant for Russia's Pres. Vladimir Putin on charges related to the Ukraine war.5
  • Meanwhile, Pretoria on Monday granted diplomatic immunity for participants in both the foreign ministers meeting in South Africa and the BRICS summit in August, saying the move does not override any warrant issued by an international tribunal.6

Sources: 1Reuters, 2Newsdrum, 3Iol, 4Adda247, 5Bloomberg and 6The mail & guardian.

Narratives

  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Asia times. The agenda of the BRICS foreign ministers meeting in the run-up to the August summit underscores that the era of unipolarity and the West's hypocritical 'liberal world order' is coming to an end. This is reflected in BRICS' efforts to 'de-dollarize' and in the fact that their collective Gross Domestic Product already exceeds that of the US-led G7. The BRICS countries' refusal to join the proxy war against Russia is further evidence of the new confidence that is gaining momentum among the global south nations.
  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by Eu dominance – daily investor. Despite all the BRICS hype and the supposedly imminent end of the US-led global economic order, the reality is more complex. The bloc's composition is primarily characterized by geopolitical and economic rivalries that make the creation of a common currency extremely difficult — a problem that is likely to be exacerbated by adding more members. The fact that South Africa is flirting with the war criminal Putin, thus antagonizing the US as its second-largest trading partner, also does not bode well for the future of BRICS.

Predictions