BRICS 2019

WILL GLOBAL CONDITIONS AFFECT ITS POTENTIAL FUTURE?

- RENATO BAUMANN*

The BRICS are a peculiar group, originally formed on the basis of its members sharing the common characteristics of a large territory, big population, GDP over a certain a level and a strong will to influence global governance. South Africa was incorporated later, sharing basically the last characteristic.

The set of members comprises three old societies with a record of past armed conflicts among themselves, plus two new, geographically distant partners.

It also comprises the second biggest economy in the planet, hence a permanent, potential risk of becoming ´China plus four`, meaning by that the risk of joint decisions corresponding more directly to Chinese interest than to the interests of other members.

As reflected in the post-Summits Declarations, at the very beginning the objective of the group was quite clear, focused on the influence on global governance.

A precondition for doing so, however, is to identify common objectives among the members. That requires deeper mutual knowledge, and clearly, the Declarations following the Summits after the first one in Ekaterinburg show a significant number of initiatives in this regard, dealing with a gradually increasing number of issues.

The diversification of themes dealt with in these Declarations has stimulated readings of lack of objectives by the group. Indeed, the increasing number of Articles in the subsequent Declarations make it hard to visualize the actual targets of the group.

This diversification of themes mirrors not only the measures that could improve the degree of mutual knowledge but also – and perhaps more important – a number of initiatives aiming at intensifying the complementarity among the five members. There is a clear understanding that there is a potential to be explored in terms of exchange of experiences and joint works that might help improve competitiveness as well as satisfy basic needs of the population of the member countries.