Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks during a meeting with representatives of parliamentary foreign affairs committees from BRICS countries, Moscow, April 11, 2024
11 April 2024 14:18
659-11-04-2024
Colleagues,
Friends,
It is a privilege for me to welcome you at the Foreign Ministry. I am absolutely sure that our colleagues from both chambers of the Federal Assembly are doing everything they can and will do their best to ensure that you enjoy as much of our traditional Russian hospitality and cordiality as possible.
I know that your programme in Moscow includes working, as well as cultural events. Hopefully, you will be leaving with positive memories, as it always happens whenever somebody visits us.
I am certain that you have been following major events like the Games of the Future and the World Youth Festival. They demonstrated just how relevant gatherings of this kind are, since they are free from any attempts to politicise everything, from sports to arts.
Today, the world has reached a decisive turning point, a major threshold in its development. This is attributable to the ongoing emergence of a multipolar world order. We can see that countries of the Global South and East, or the Global Majority, as we call it, are committed to further strengthening their international standing by choosing the path of independence and focusing their foreign policies on pursuing their national interests. It is with great satisfaction that we note the firm commitment by the Global Majority to reforming the global governance architecture in fairness and justice.
We have been consistent in advocating a unifying international agenda for putting in place favourable conditions and creating an enabling environment for all countries and nations without exception, rather than for a small group of the chosen ones. Unfortunately, the US-led collective West has been persisting in its attempts to postpone and dial back these inevitable changes, if not reverse this objective historical process altogether.
The United States and its allies proceed in their destructive policy from some kind of rules, as they call them. They were the ones who created them, which in fact amounts to using double standards. This has already caused instability in many countries and even across entire regions. To preserve their hegemony, the West has been extensively seeking to divide and rule as per the infamous colonial-era principle. They have been intentionally fanning the flames of interethnic, interfaith and interstate conflict, while using a wide array of coercive measures against those who disagree, as you know very well. This can range from outright military invasions to illegal unilateral sanctions and international media shaming.
I have no doubt that these selfish policies will never succeed in containing the new global centres of gravity in Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. An irreversible historical process has been set in motion, and the numbers are there to prove this point, among other things. In fact, the global balance of power is shifting. For example, Russia emerged as the Europe's largest and the world's top five economy in terms of purchasing power parity. By the same token, BRICS countries left the Group of Seven behind in terms of aggregate GDP by purchasing power parity even before our association expanded its ranks. No one can stop these processes. The trends are there, and experts understand what this means.
Against this background, we think it logical and natural that increasingly more Global South countries display growing interest in BRICS and its activities. The thing is that our association is not attempting to turn back the objective historical processes involved in the emergence of policentricity. On the contrary, BRICS in every way seeks to facilitate and head them, but not in its narrowly selfish interests. Rather it is promoting the interests of all its members (and not only them) as well as the interests of all countries that want to work with BRICS.
Our cooperation is based on an equitable dialogue, respect for each country choosing its own way of development, regard for the interests of each other, and an orientation towards a collective search for solutions to all modern problems. Let me say without exaggeration that today BRICS speaks for the interests of the entire non-Western world. The decision to expand BRICS adopted in Johannesburg in August 2023 was a real breakthrough. It was then that our leaders agreed to admit new countries, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates joining as full members on January 1, 2024. Each of these nations has a considerable economic potential, plays an important role both in its region and internationally, and, what is most important, shares the basic values of BRICS that unite us, including the spirit of solidarity, equality, mutual respect, openness and consensus.
The harmonious integration of the new participants into the existing BRICS mechanisms is one of the main priorities of the Russian Chairmanship in 2024. We are doing our best towards this. The results of events at the level of sherpas, sous-sherpas and other formats demonstrate that the "new recruits" are making their unique contribution to the common effort on all the main items of the agenda. We hope that this activity will only mount and will soon be embodied in new practical initiatives to be considered by our association.
Yet another important decision approved at the Johannesburg Summit was to identify the parameters and criteria for a new category of "BRICS partner states." This work is being done by the sherpas and sous-sherpas. Its results should be submitted to the BRICS Foreign Ministers' Meeting scheduled for June of this year in Nizhny Novgorod, where recommendations will be formulated for our leaders ahead of the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan.
We have no doubt that inviting a broad range of developing countries to cooperate with BRICS will further consolidate the Global Majority's effort to solve common problems in everyone's interests. The objectives facing the Russian BRICS Chairmanship include enhancing international coordination between the BRICS countries and their allies at international platforms, primarily at the UN and the G20.
We regard the coordination of the Joint Statement on behalf of BRICS at the Sixth Session of the UN Environmental Assembly, held in Nairobi in late February and early March, 2024, as an important result. We think it essential to go on with this practice.
In preparation for the summit in Kazan, we are placing special emphasis on expanding counter-terrorism cooperation with our partners. The BRICS Working Group on Counter-Terrorism is active, including its five subgroups. The recent tragic events at Crocus City Hall near Moscow have once again highlighted the need for antiterrorist specialists and legislators to intensify joint efforts to combat this global evil. Parliaments play a major role in ensuring the timely update and consolidation of the legislative framework for law enforcement to take necessary action against terrorists.
We also plan to expand anti-drug cooperation. We have a shared agenda, which includes joint steps to fight corruption, money laundering, and financing of terrorism, and to search for common responses to challenges and threats in the information space. Enhancing cyber security is another current priority, as is ensuring favourable conditions for the member states' development, building up their innovation, technology and human resources.
We will promote the BRICS members' role in the international monetary and financial system, deeper interbank cooperation and the transformation of the international payments system to expand the use of our national currencies in mutual trade. Just recently, our representatives at the World Bank, including top officials, their advisers and deputies, met in Washington. All the countries present here were represented at those meetings. The need to reform the international monetary and financial system is becoming increasingly urgent. In fact, it is long overdue. Based on objective macroeconomic financial indicators, the five original BRICS members should have had a greater share in the capital and more votes at international monetary and financial institutions; the United States' share should have shrunk according to objective economic indicators. However, the United States is trying to stall reform at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to avoid a revision of quotas and votes, keeping its share that enables Washington to block most decisions unilaterally. This is unfair and undemocratic. We will work on these issues with particular enthusiasm. This is important for our practical actions.
Speaking about bank cooperation, I would like to mention the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), which has its specific features. Not only the group's member countries but also non-members can be its shareholders. In the past few years, we noticed attempts by Western representatives to influence the bank's operation and to guide it towards the implementation of tasks that are not stipulated in its charter. I believe that today everyone is aware of the importance of preventing these attempts and strictly complying with the bank's objectives set out in its charter.
We put a high value on the strengthening of cultural and humanitarian contacts. This allows us to develop horizontal ties between our citizens and various segments of our civil societies. We are preparing a number of events in this context, such as the BRICS Games and the Intervision international song festival with the countries that are interested in promoting such international forums to support and develop national arts in all our countries. Other events on our plans are aimed at creating a film academy next year, which will award annual film prizes under the umbrella of BRICS, BRICS Plus and their associates.
Regarding humanitarian ties, we are focused on cooperation between the BRICS countries' parliaments. Interparliamentary dialogue has long become a vital element of multilateral diplomacy, and our group is no exception in this regard. The idea of launching cooperation between the BRICS countries' legislative bodies was formulated in 2013, when our association held its fifth summit. The first parliamentary forum was subsequently held in Moscow in 2015. We will mark its 10th anniversary next year. Since 2015, our lawmakers have met regularly. I would like to point out that the Memorandum of Understanding signed at the BRICS Parliamentary Forum in Johannesburg in August 2023 was a new stage in the development of our interparliamentary ties.
We would like to mention active cooperation between BRICS MPs at multilateral events, such as the IPU Assembly held in Geneva in March 2024. A meeting of the heads of BRICS delegations held on the sidelines of the assembly to compare views on the current operation of the IPU Assembly and to discuss our plans for the coming period was mutually beneficial. I believe that such coordination at universal parliamentary platforms is very useful. During this visit, you will discuss draft documents and the practical aspects of organising the BRICS Parliamentary Forum, scheduled to be held in St Petersburg on July 11-12.
The Foreign Ministry will do whatever is necessary for a comfortable and fruitful work of the parliamentarians.
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