Brics summit | Brics: Counterweight to the “West”

Everything ready for the summit: The “Brics India 2026” logo adorns the area in front of the Bharat Mandapam building in New Delhi. Photo: AFP/Arun Sankar The host of the Brics summit in 2026 has a clear position: India says it sees the alliance of states as “non-Western” – and not “anti-Western”. Brazil and South Africa see it similarly, but the other two states that make up the name, China and Russia, can gain a lot from “anti-Western”. Since the start of the Ukraine war and the US attack on the Brics-plus state of Iran, more than ever.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Brics states formed an alliance in order to be better prepared to deal with such global crises in the future that have their origins in the West. The alliance has been growing since 2024 and now has ten members and dozens of interested parties. They are all united in wanting to strengthen the Global South in the world order. That is the lowest common denominator, otherwise there are many differences, such as those between regional rivals India and China.

Like all countries in the Global South, India wants a fairer world order. Delhi would like a seat on the UN Security Council and a strengthening of the Global South at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). What India and most countries in the Global South do not want is a new world order led by Beijing and Moscow instead of Washington. The plea is for a multipolar order, against which the USA under Donald Trump is resolutely resisting - the Iran war, the military intervention in Venezuela, the attempted strangulation of Cuba prove this again and again.

The New Development Bank (NDB), founded by Brics in 2014, supports the fight against underdevelopment and poverty with cheap loans. And it does so in a socially balanced way, without demanding social cuts for fresh money like the IMF. The NDB makes sense, as does the endeavor to conduct more trade in one's own currencies instead of the dollar and to establish alternative payment systems. This diversifies risks, reduces dependencies and thus strengthens crisis resilience.

The Brics are still a long way from a New World Economic Order (NWO). The NWO, approved by the UN in 1974, was never brought to life. The West had no interest in balancing interests with the South. Brics still has to gain a lot of strength in order to change anything. However, the general direction is correct.

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