THE HAGUE, August 21. /TASS/. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) plays an important role on the international financial market and can help create a fairer payment and settlement system. Dutch publicist and political scientist Ab Gietelink voiced this opinion in an interview with TASS.
According to him, BRICS plays an important economic role, but the role of association is even more important from a financial point of view.
"It is unacceptable in modern times that one country (meaning the United States - TASS) has control over all ongoing operations and can impose sanctions on every country they don’t like," the expert noted.
He stressed that the global community needs a less centralized and more fair payment and settlement system.
"Of course, I know that Russia is trying to do this with its Mir payment system, but a lot of countries do not accept it," he noted.
"Maybe it [less centralized settlement system] can start with the BRICS but it needs to go on the level of the UN and the Security Council, where it must be stated that political sanctions should not concern international payments," the expert said.
"It's a completely idiotic situation when China is buying petrol from Russia or Saudi Arabia and has to pay in dollars," Gietelink said adding that settlements should be made "in rubles, reals or yuan but not in dollars."
Meanwhile the United States is taking advantage of the current situation for its own purposes, he noted. The current settlement system makes the position of the US very strong, "they have a deficit of $500 bln a year and they can still spend money," he said.
It is very important that many different currencies be used, and this issue should be one of the main ones for the BRICS "as an association advocating a more balanced, multipolar world," the expert believes.
Single currency as an alternative
As an alternative, Gietelink considers it possible to create a single currency for international payments, which should be balanced and under the control of the UN. In this context, he gave an example of the ecu - a currency unit that served as a generalized representative of the basket of currencies of the countries that were part of the European monetary system, and was used in the EU countries during the transition from national currencies to the euro.
Perhaps the introduction of "a single currency, which is balanced against a basket of major world currencies," said the political scientist.
"But it has to be a UN coin, not controlled by one country. <…>And it should be balanced against all major currencies in the world. Then it will be possible to conduct international business with it. Maybe the BRICS can help make that step," he said.
Don't repeat the mistakes of the EU
As for possible accession of new countries to the BRICS, Gietelink expressed the opinion that the organization's summit in Johannesburg on August 22-24 would generally approve the expansion. In this context, he noted the importance of the organization not repeating the mistakes of the EU, which started as an economic union, but later became a political association, and now seeks to turn into a military union.
"It went too far," the expert stressed. BRICS, he hopes, will not repeat this mistake, as the countries of the bloc are scattered around the world and strive to preserve national sovereignty. However, the block will definitely need a new structure.
"If five people can sit down at the negotiating table and make a decision, then with several dozen states everything can be much more difficult. BRICS has great future; the bloc can expand to 50 or 100 states. But they need to agree on what the structure will be. And big countries like China, Russia and India should play a bigger role in it than small countries," the expert said.