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Over 40 nations want to join BRICS — Russian lawmaker

According to Grigory Karasin, many BRICS members share the opinion that the association should be in no hurry to adopt a strict charter, "seeing how counterproductively and even provocatively the European Union is acting"

MOSCOW, April 15. /TASS/. More than 40 countries currently want to join BRICS and this number is growing, a senior Russian lawmaker said.

"More than 40 countries have said they want to join the group. And the number of such countries continues to increase every month. This proves that such a free and flexible format of cooperation within BRICS is very attractive," Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee of Russia’s Federation Council, or upper house of parliament, told a briefing following a meeting of the heads of BRICS parliamentary commissions on international affairs, which was held in Moscow last week.

According to Karasin, many BRICS members share the opinion that the association should be in no hurry to adopt a strict charter, "seeing how counterproductively and even provocatively the European Union is acting." "So far, this is quite justified. As long as BRICS’ future looks very promising for all of its members, the number of candidates for joining it will keep on growing," he said.

Touching on the prospects for the development of the BRICS financial transaction system, he noted that this is an important topic, which is being discussed by the association’s members. "This topic was raised during our working meeting. I am sure it will be addressed at the BRICS parliamentary forum in St. Petersburg. Many countries directly asked questions about the de-dollarization of the economy because too much attention is being focused on the dollar while major powers have their own currencies. The issue is quite pressing," Karasin said.

Russia took over BRICS presidency on January 1, 2024. Established in 2006, the BRIC group was made up of Brazil, Russia, India and China. In 2011, South Africa joined the group, adding the "S" to the acronym. Now it has ten members after six new countries, including Argentina, were invited to join the association in August 2023, but Argentina refused from joining BRICS in late December, while the other five nations, namely Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia, became full-fledged members of BRICS from January 1, 2024.

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