As Brazil gears up for the BRICS summit in July 2025, there is increasingly more newsflow on the modalities of the BRICS outreach activities this year
As Brazil gears up for the BRICS summit in July 2025, there is increasingly more newsflow on the modalities of the BRICS outreach activities this year. After earlier reports about the invitation of Brazil’s Latin American neighbors such as Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay to the BRICS+ summit, more recently it became known that Vietnam is also invited to the BRICS+ outreach meetings. This is an important sign that ASEAN as a region continues to be in the focus of BRICS outreach efforts, but also a signal about the continuity of the BRICS+ format. In this respect, while there may be mechanisms within BRICS that contribute to the succession of priorities of BRICS chairmanship from one year to the next, there may be reasons to believe that recent developments in BRICS evolution call for introducing new mechanisms that would contribute to the smoothness of year-to-year successions.
The main reason why additional mechanisms may be needed in ensuring a smoother succession in BRICS chairmanships is the expansion in the BRICS core from 5 to 10 economies. This further increases the heterogeneity among members and their priorities that henceforth will need to be coordinated and reconciled to a greater degree. The new members of the BRICS bloc will need to get involved in meetings related to the preparation of high-level discussions that form part of the BRICS chairmanship agenda. Such greater coordination in the succession of BRICS presidencies will need to be taken to a higher level also due to the possibility of further core expansion and the formation of the new BRICS “partnership belt”.
The difficulties and limitations associated with BRICS core expansion have already been voiced by Brazil as the BRICS chair this year. In the beginning of this year Brazil’s Foreign Ministry declared that BRICS expansion was not on the agenda during the country’s chairmanship. Similar concerns have been voiced in 2024 by Russia about the limitations associated with further BRICS core expansion. Nonetheless, in 2025 Indonesia became a new member of the BRICS core and there are reasons to believe that further expansion may not be excluded altogether. This is because there are two prominent emerging economies – Saudi Arabia and Argentina – that have pending invitations from the BRICS to join, but have not accepted these invitations as of yet. Like Indonesia, however, these economies may eventually opt to join BRICS in the coming years. Furthermore, the creation of the “partnership belt” raises the need for coordinating priorities not only within the expanding circle of the core but also with the BRICS partners that are likely to play an increasingly important role in the meetings organized by each successive BRICS presidency.
In terms of the possible modalities for ensuring a smoother succession between BRICS annual presidencies, one possibility could be the replication of the “troika format” used by the G20[1], whereby the priorities and preparations for chairmanships are coordinated by three members consisting of the preceding presidency, the current presidency and the next successive chair of the bloc. Incidentally, the number of BRICS core members together with partners is currently 19, with the possibility of reaching the number of G20 members in the next several years in case some of the pending invitations are accepted. In the case of this year the BRICS troika would include Russia (chair from 2024), Brazil (current chair) and India (chair in 2026). Among the potential benefits of the “troika” format is the closer coordination of priorities among the BRICS presidencies that are set to succeed each other as well as greater scope for member countries to continue to contribute to the implementation of their initiatives for several years after the completion of their chairmanship. This format is also conducive towards the formation of BRICS+ plurilateral agreements and discussions in a setting characterized by a significantly wider array of core members and partners of the BRICS+ circle.
Another possible modality for BRICS could involve a more rigorous use of the regional principle in the determination of further expansion, in the cooperation between core members and partners as well as in the succession among presidencies (the regional principle is also used within the G20 framework[2] as well as within United Nations (UN)[3]). The main regional constituencies in the determination of future expansion and presidency rotation could include: Latin America (provided there are more core members from the region), Africa and Asia (the Tricontinental Format). As in the case of the G20, the BRICS may also consider modalities for inviting some of the key regional organizations and regional integration blocs from the Global South into the BRICS core, the partnership circle or into a separate regional platform. The use of the regional principle in BRICS operations may also be instrumental in building the groundwork for greater cooperation among the regional integration blocs, including the sphere of trade liberalization.
In the end, some of the above adjustments to the BRICS mechanisms of international cooperation could provide greater scope for smoother succession of presidencies. Another potential benefit is that some of mechanisms “borrowed” from the G20 could improve the capabilities of BRICS and BRICS+ to build cooperative arrangements with the G20, the UN and other global forums. The “BRICS troika” format as well as the “BRICS regional principle” could also allow for more continuity and the scaling up of the BRICS+ format going forward. With BRICS expansion likely continuing, even if mostly outside of the core, the bloc will need to be able to adapt to the rapid and sizeable changes that it is experiencing.
Yaroslav Lissovolik – Founder of BRICS+ Analytics.
