The BRICS’ nations—Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa and China— on Wednesday kicked off the Extraordinary Sherpa and Sous Sherpa Meeting in Kwazulu-Natal to finalize the criteria for the grouping’s expansion.
The two-day meeting being held under the South African Presidency is being chaired by South Africa's BRICS Sherpa Anil Sooklal.
It is being attended by the sherpas of other BRICS nations-- Eduardo Saboia, the Secretary of Asia and the Pacific in the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, Russian deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, Li Kexin , the Director-General of the Department of International Economic Affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Dammu Ravi, who is a Secretary (Economic Relations) at India’s Ministry of External Affairs.
The South African presidency said in a statement that the Sherpas and Sous-Sherpas have been mandated by the BRICS foreign ministers to prepare a report on the grouping’s expansion.
“It is expected that the report will be presented to the Ministers at the next BRICS Ministerial meeting which will be held virtually in July 2023,” the statement said.
The Foreign Ministers will make their recommendations to the respective leaders ahead of the BRICS’ summit scheduled to be held in Johannesburg on 23 August.
Focussed Approach Needed to Achieve Consensus, Says South African Sherpa
Delivering the opening remarks at the BRICS meeting, Sooklal underscored the need to achieve an “agreement on the guiding principles, standards and criteria for expansion”.
The South African sherpa said that the BRICS countries also needed to look at the issue of “expansion” in terms of how they would like to define it and the “type” of expansion they were looking to achieve.
He added that a revised text of the document spelling out details about the expansion had been circulated among the delegations.
Sooklal said that there was a need to follow a “focussed approach” to achieve a “consensus” on the issue of expansion.
“I fully understand that is a sensitive issue. We need to be mindful and respect the position of each one of us,” Sooklal stated.
Sergy Ryabkov underlined that the issue of BRICS’ expansion was “highly relevant and timely”.
“We cannot ignore the very strong response of the developing world to BRICS’ expansion plans. Now, it is a unique moment that we cannot afford to lose,” the Russian sherpa stated.
The Indian sherpa called for holding discussions on each of the proposed criterial and guidelines in the circulated document.
“Of course, the spirit of BRICS is consensus. We want to find a consensus on each one of them,” Ravi said.