WILLIHERME BOTACINI
BRASÍLIA, DF – The Brazilian government announced this Friday (17) eight partner members of Brics, including Cuba and Bolivia as representatives of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The list also includes Belarus, a dictatorship allied with Russia, Uganda, Thailand, Malaysia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
The new members had been invited at last year’s summit in Kazan, Russia. The entry modality is different from the full member category, a status granted to Brazil, China, India and Russia, founding members along with South Africa, which joined the bloc shortly after its foundation.
Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates are also full members. Saudi Arabia, invited, did not formalize its entry despite following the bloc’s activities.
“Partner countries are invited to the summit, to the meeting of foreign ministers and can join other forum discussion spaces, after consultation with member countries and decision by consensus. These nations can also endorse the BRICS summit declarations, [declarações] joint meetings of the Brics foreign ministers, as well as other final documents”, the Brazilian government said in a statement.
At the Kazan summit last year, 12 countries were invited to join the BRICS. In addition to those joining now and Indonesia, which was accepted as a full member, Nigeria, Turkey and Vietnam – these last three, to date, have not joined the bloc.
The event had a Brazilian veto against Venezuela, which aims to be part of the organization. The country’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, frequently states in speeches that Caracas is already part of the BRICS and went to Kazan by surprise on the occasion of the summit. The Brazilian veto was motivated by tension between the two countries.
Decisions to invite and join the bloc, however, as reinforced by the Brazilian government, are taken by consensus. As long as Brazil or another nation opposes Venezuelan entry, the country will not even be invited to join the bloc.
