| There’s a new club in town and it is taking on new members. And it’s not the European Union. Ahead of this week’s BRICS summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in Johannesburg, the consensus among leaders was that opening the doors to new members would give the grouping a much-needed jolt. Other pre-summit plans – such as the move towards de-dollarisation, and the Brazilian idea of creating a common currency for the bloc – were put on the back burner. Expanding the club to include Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE in January will result in the new BRICS+, representing 46% of the world’s population and an even greater share of its economic output. Of the new six, the inclusion of Iran and Ethiopia will raise eyebrows. Neither are regional heavyweights economically or politically, while Ethiopia is barely recovering from a civil war in its northern provinces. Indonesia and Bangladesh, in contrast, would have brought far more economic dynamism to the table. What remains unclear amid the group’s expansion is the main purpose of the organisation. The BRICS group does not have a common market or harmonised regulatory standards. Its main asset is a financial architecture that features a development bank and cash reserve for countries whose currency gets into difficulty. It is hard to see the club being a political talking shop since the existing members have little in common politically. Nor is there any desire, from South Africa or elsewhere, for the BRICS to become a mouthpiece for the developing world or Global South. The African Union is close to becoming a member of the G20 and there is support from the EU and United States for a permanent African seat on the United Nations Security Council. The danger to the BRICS’s future is that it becomes an anti-Western club. | 