BRICS : an emerging economic challenge for the EU

Abstract

Two scenarios can be observed in international affairs at present. Emerging countries such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are going through high economic growth, while developed countries such as the European Union and most of its member states are struggling to recover from the financial crisis. Hence, the main focus of this study is to analyse to what extent the BRICS countries present an economic challenge to the European Union and to what extent this economic challenge may shift to a more political one. This study goes through the predictions which were made for the BRICS countries and evaluates whether these predictions where achieved and gives an overview of the differences among these five countries in order to analyse the economic challenge that they present. An analysis of the BRICS within two international fora, namely the United Nations General Assembly and the Group of 20, was also conducted. Through the analysis of the voting patterns of the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly, this study evaluates whether the BRICS countries vote in cohesion on key international issues. A synthesis of Group of 20 summits is compared to the BRICS summits and helps to establish the extent of influence that the BRICS countries have within this forum. These two studies suggest that although the BRICS countries are not cohesive in their voting within the United Nations General Assembly especially on issues of human rights and nuclear weapons and arms control, they initiate key debates within the Group of 20, such as the reforms within the International Monetary Fund. This shows that, although the BRICS do present an economic challenge for the European Union, their political strength is still not determined. Even though through the Group of 20, the BRICS are becoming very effective, results from the BRICS voting behaviour within the United Nations General Assembly show that the European Union can use their lack of cohesiveness to its own advantage and take a bilateral approach with individual BRICS countries on specific issues.