The admission of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, and Indonesia in 2024 was a turning point, significantly enhancing the BRICS demographic, economic, and energy potential. Enlargement has increased BRICS’s global visibility, resource diversity, and political clout, making the group more appealing to the general public, especially young people.
Experts unanimously believe that this move transformed BRICS from a club of major economies into a representative platform for the “global majority,” strengthening its legitimacy as an expression of the interests of the Global South.
However, as analysts note, the dramatic increase in membership has exacerbated a key challenge: internal heterogeneity. The new members, they argue, brought not only additional resources but also a wide range of political systems, competing regional interests, historical contradictions, and varying levels of economic development, which inevitably complicated the process of reaching consensus.
The report’s authors warn of the risks of slowing decision-making and “diluting” the group’s original strategic agenda. This conclusion underscores the need for urgent and deep institutionalization of BRICS to transform quantitative growth into qualitative strengthening. Specifically, this requires “the creation of a permanent BRICS secretariat and clear membership criteria.”
Furthermore, the experts propose developing a multi-level architecture that would allow for the formation of “coalitions of the willing” around specific projects, the development of a common vocabulary, and mechanisms for resolving potential disagreements among participants. Whether BRICS enlargement will strengthen or weaken it in the long term will depend on whether more effective institutions can be created and goals clearly articulated.
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