Experts say Brics expansion is likely, but details will be tricky as members’ priorities differ
- Questions about membership process and criteria have yet to be addressed as the bloc of five nations appears headed toward the addition of new members
- More than 20 countries from the Global South have made formal requests to join the group of emerging economies
Hours after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi defied predictions of a stalemate over a potential Brics expansion by saying he supported plans to add more countries to the group of five emerging economies, experts warned that the “devil is in the details”.
“India fully supports the expansion of Brics and welcomes [the] move forward on this based-on consensus,” Modi said on Wednesday in his first public comment on the issue, as Brics leaders met for a second day in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The bloc’s current members are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South Programme at the Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft, a think tank in Washington, asked: “What is the kind of mechanisms that we will put in place in the Brics summit and beyond to get these members?”
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Shidore said there could be intermediate stages of membership, adding it was “quite normal” in other groups like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to have “dialogue partners, observers and so forth”.