June 24, 2025
cooperating for an inclusive and sustainable world
The Uruguayan government considers it essential that the founding members of the BRICS group advance in their role as a balancing factor in the international system, said Álvaro Padrón, advisor on regional integration and international cooperation to the Uruguayan government.
“Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa are rightly demanding a leading role that is not reflected in the institutions or in the balances that have developed over the last 70 years. We can fully identify with this, and for Uruguay it is essential that this agenda and this sense of balance improve,“ Padrón said.
”That is why we support our partner in the region, Brazil, in the BRICS, in this task of finding a new balance at the international level,” he added.
The executive secretary of the Center for Regional Integration Training (Cefir) compared this bloc to the G20 and the G7, noting that the latter “is made up of the developed countries of the North,” while the BRICS countries were born “with the idea of democratizing the international system and offering a counterweight to the hard core of world power.”
In less than 30 years, we have seen a “radical change” in this scheme, and today countries such as those that make up the BRICS are “absolutely unavoidable” in the international arena, he stressed.
On Tuesday, a source from the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry confirmed that Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi, Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin, and other senior officials will attend the BRICS summit.
Brazil currently holds the rotating presidency of the group and will host the summit of heads of state and government of the member countries on July 6 and 7.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva invited Mexico, Uruguay, and Colombia to participate in the summit.
According to the Uruguayan presidential adviser, “the progress of the BRICS is directly linked to the defense of multilateralism, a principle historically supported by Uruguay.
“We have a democratic vision of global balance, dialogue, and respect for the rules. Today we are witnessing a dynamic marked by the logic of force, the law of the jungle, where each country defines things according to its weight, which is somewhat the dynamic one perceives with the current US administration,” he said.
Padrón considered that the defense of multilateralism becomes an “essential banner” in the international arena and “particularly with the position of the US government based on the correlation of forces, pressure, and threats.”
This, he said, “is happening in the commercial sphere with its tariffs, breaking all the rules of multilateralism in the World Trade Organization and elsewhere, but it is also happening with very important issues such as environmental protection, without respecting the agreements that its own country had reached by consensus within the framework of the COP.”
He added that the group is also key in the face of conflicts that “call into question peace and, in addition to thousands of deaths, represent this logic of investing in armament.”
He also highlighted the peaceful nature of Latin America as a contribution to global balance. “Our region can offer something different: dialogue, stability, and a commitment to peace, as opposed to the logic of armament and conflict,” he emphasized.
One of the central themes for the BRICS, according to Padrón, is the reform of the United Nations system, particularly the Security Council, where the victorious powers of World War II retain “disproportionate privileges.”
“Today’s world can no longer be organized according to the center-periphery logic. Today there are global actors, such as transnational corporations, that have more economic and even cultural power than many states. We need a more just order that reflects this reality and where our region has a voice,“ he said.
Padrón concluded that the BRICS have a key role to play in building this new order, ”correcting historical imbalances and opening space for more inclusive and democratic global governance.”
The BRICS group, initially composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, expanded in 2024 with the entry of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Iran as full members, and Indonesia in January 2025.
Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan are part of the bloc as partner states.
The BRICS countries account for 36% of global gross domestic product and 45% of the world’s population.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English