Russia’s expanded BRICS meeting sends jitters around Europe

An expanded meeting of emerging economies taking place in Kazan, Russia, is sending jitters among EU policymakers.   

The club formed in 2009 now includes not just Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa – original members whose acronym gave it the name BRICS, and whose leaders Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin are set to meet over the coming days.   

As of 1 January, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also joined the club – creating a bloc worth over 37% of global GDP – and one potentially at odds with other institutions such as the G7 and NATO.   

But the threat to the existing US-led hegemony isn’t immediate, the Carnegie Endowment’s Stewart Patrick has argued.   

Strength or weakness in expansion?

“It’s an informal club, they’re mostly united in the sense of what they’re against,” namely an economic order they feel is stacked against them, Patrick, a senior fellow at the think tank, told Euronews.  

With free trade fraying, the invasion of Ukraine, and tensions in Taiwan, the EU relationship with China has grown increasingly fractious, and with Russia it has more or less collapsed.   

But expanding BRICS membership could actually weaken the alliance, Patrick argued.   

“As it adds new members, the diversity and heterogeneity is just going to make it even more difficult for BRICS to come up with coherent worldviews and policies,” he said.  

“The whole thing looks really impressive on a big map of the world … but in terms of its unity, that’s, I think, where you would have to scratch your head and look twice,” he added. 

With regional rivals China and India, the grouping already had its internal tensions; new members such as Saudi Arabia and Iran were “historically mortal enemies,” Patrick said. 

Controversial attendances

The most controversial potential new member is Turkey – whose President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is also travelling to Russia. 

The country has the second largest army in NATO, and was historically aligned with the west. Its foreign minister recently hinted that the geopolitical switch was due to being repeatedly rebuffed for membership of the EU.   

“This is an example of Turkey showing that it has other diplomatic options and alignments,” Stewart said. “This allows Erdogan to take the mantle of a defender of emerging powers and not simply be in lockstep with the west.” 

But it’s the presence of another European that’s drawing the most attention.   

António Guterres, the former Portuguese Prime Minister who’s now UN Secretary General, is apparently attending – something the Ukrainian foreign ministry has described, in a post on X, as “a wrong choice that does not advance the cause of peace” and “damages the UN’s reputation”.  

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Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis joined in the chorus, calling Guterres’ move “unacceptable” in a post on X.   

Spokespeople for Guterres did not respond to a request for comment from Euronews.

There could be legitimate reasons for Guterres visiting Russia, such as fostering a peace initiative, but Patrick is wary.  

“It might be seen as legitimating Vladimir Putin’s policies … I don’t see much upside for him doing that,” he said.

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For others, the worry over the BRICS is not geopolitical, so much as economic – given the potential power of a bloc which is now two and a half times the EU’s economic size.   

Enrico Letta, the former Italian Prime Minister, this week said the BRICS summit underlined the need for Europe to join forces and integrate their economies – the topic of a report he produced earlier this year.   

Boosting the EU’s single market was a question of “whether we want to become a colony of the US or of China” in the near future, Letta told MEPs on Monday.