The BRICS alliance sent invitations to 69 countries to attend the upcoming summit in South Africa in August. BRICS Ambassador Anil Sooklal confirmed that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa invited all the heads of state from African countries to be a part of the summit. The invitation is sent out to African nations and the political heads of the Global South bodies. However, Western countries including the U.S. U.K., Germany, and France are not invited to the upcoming BRICS summit.
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French President Emmanuel Macron had expressed interest to attend the BRICS summit but was met with fierce opposition. France was the only European country to have shown its desire to attend the upcoming meet. Macron had made controversial statements about the U.S. dollar and also called on Europe to end its dependency on the greenback. The French leader called the U.S. dollar a “great risk” to hold as reserves of any European country.
Macron’s interest to attend the BRICS summit was met with opposition from Russia and China. The two countries believe that France wants to attend the meeting to sabotage the summit and gain inside information about its global plans.
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Apart from France, Eastern European country Belarus had also expressed interest to be a part of the BRICS alliance. Belarus has also not received an invitation to attend the meeting in Johannesburg. Read here to know why Belarus wants to stop trading in the U.S. dollar for cross-border transactions.
Therefore, among all the 69 invitations sent to different countries, not a single Western nation is invited to the BRICS summit.
BRICS Summit 2023 To Be The Biggest Meet For The Alliance
If all the heads of state accept the invitation, it would be the biggest meeting under one roof for BRICS. Sooklal confirmed that the summit will discuss “trading in local currencies,” with the leaders who attend the meeting.
“We’ve never had such a large outreach,” Sooklal stressed, indicating that a handful of countries could accept trading in local currencies. “Countries want to have greater flexibility and to be less dependent on the dollar,” he summed it up.
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BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The bloc of five nations could jointly decide about the expansion and growth into BRICS+ this year. Around 44 countries have expressed interest to join the alliance and end reliance on the U.S. dollar.