The 2024 BRICS summit in Kazan is over and there is a sense that the impulse of the bloc’s expansion launched by China in 2022 with its revitalized BRICS+ initiative is still quite strong. Indeed, the BRICS+ meetings in Kazan marked the third year in a row of such outreach formats being held by the BRICS presidencies – something that is likely to make the BRICS+ format more entrenched and durable going forward. And despite the pause in the expansion of the BRICS core in 2024, the bloc moved towards further enlargement via creating a “partnership belt” – a new category of economies that are to develop closer economic ties with the BRICS core.
The modalities of the new “partnership belt” are yet to be spelled out, but most likely this group of countries will participate on a regular basis in BRICS summits and the key BRICS meetings at the ministerial/Central Bank level. The composition of the “partnership belt” has not been revealed thus far either, and according to the Russian authorities the procedure of accession will involve a formal invitation being sent to the authorities and upon its acceptance the official announcement will be made revealing the identity of the new member of the “partnership belt”. According to media sources (not confirmed at this stage), the list of the members of the “partnership belt” includes Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda and Vietnam[1]. One may expect that most of the invitations are likely to be accepted as the list of invited countries focussed on those economies that had previously expressed their willingness to join the BRICS bloc.
The main effect of the expanded membership is already observed in the wording of the final declaration of the BRICS summit in Kazan – there are now more references to some of the decisions being made on a voluntary basis – a sign that as consensus is more difficult to secure amid rising membership there is more readiness for pursuing solutions and decisions on a plurilateral/sub-group basis. The “plurilateral path” may indeed be the way to try to combine rising membership and greater effectiveness of the BRICS group in launching new initiatives – full-scale consensus was hard to secure even when the BRICS still had just five members.
As regards the invitation of regional blocs to the Kazan summit, they were predominantly represented by Eurasia – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), CIS, and the Eurasian Economic Union. This “local bias” was in line with the “outreach” patterns that predated the more diverse/global BRICS+ format launched by China. A more diverse set of regional blocs from the Global South at the summit – for example via the participation of the African Union, ASEAN, CELAC – would have allowed for more horizontal cooperation among the regional organizations of the developing world in discussing international best practices in regional integration.
Going forward the presidency in BRICS is passed on to Brazil in 2025 and this may mark a further evolution in the BRICS+ dynamics. We expect the BRICS+ meetings to be held in 2025 under Brazil’s presidency (contrary to Bolsonaro’s decision to discontinue such meetings in 2019) with more scope for the participation of regional blocs of the Global South from across different continents compared to the Kazan summit format. Next year will likely be the first year of the participation of the “partnership belt” in BRICS summit meetings. There may also be scope for the BRICS+ format to be complemented by a BRICS++ outreach that may involve the participation of development institutions and international organizations from the advanced economies. Overall, BRICS+ is an open-ended concept that will likely evolve from one BRICS country presidency to the next, with new innovative formats of cooperation being devised by BRICS to utilize the full potential of South-South economic cooperation.
[1] https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/7250515
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
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