The paradox of cohesion: the new Delhi Ministerial Meeting and the limits of concertation in an expanded BRICS

Note: The views expressed in this text are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of this website.

Meeting of BRICS Foreign Ministers in New Delhi, May 2026. Source: Ministry of External Affairs of India (2026).

The ministerial meeting of BRICS held in New Delhi between May 14 and 15, 2026, produced an unusual outcome in the group's trajectory. The foreign ministers were unable to issue a joint declaration, publishing only a Chair’s Statement that recorded the existence of divergent views among some members regarding the situation in the Middle East and West Asia. India, holding the BRICS presidency, released a 63-paragraph document that recorded consensus on economic issues and global governance while also acknowledging the absence of agreement on more sensitive security matters, with two paragraphs accompanied by formal reservations from unidentified members.

The episode reflects a challenge associated with the recent expansion process of BRICS. The incorporation of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Iran as new members admitted between 2024 and 2025 significantly increased the forum’s demographic and economic weight. This enlargement, however, also increased the diversity of interests represented within the group and made regional differences more visible than they had previously been in BRICS meetings. This is not to suggest that the arrangement was homogeneous before the expansion: China and India, for example, have maintained a longstanding strategic rivalry, and the positions of Brazil and Russia on the international order have not always coincided. The point is that the new composition appears to have made it more difficult to manage this heterogeneity within the consensus-based format that guides the mechanism’s operation.

The military escalation involving Iran, the United States, and Israel throughout 2026 gave greater practical relevance to this challenge. Conceived as a preparatory stage for the September Leaders’ Summit, the New Delhi meeting tested the capacity of the expanded BRICS to accommodate political differences on issues of international security. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi advocated for an explicit condemnation of American and Israeli attacks and accused the United Arab Emirates of direct involvement in military operations against Iran. The Emirati delegation rejected the accusation and, in turn, attributed thousands of attacks against its territory to Iran since the beginning of the war. This deadlock complicated the construction of a common formulation.

An analysis of national positions reveals a pattern of fragmentation that became visible in the final document. From an analytical perspective, it is possible to identify three predominant patterns of positioning. The first, centered on sovereignty, included Russia, China, Brazil, and South Africa, which emphasized the violation of Iranian sovereignty. The second, characterized by a regional-strategic orientation, grouped India, Egypt, and Ethiopia, whose priority appears to have been energy security and the stability of maritime routes, leading them to support measures against Iran in the vote on United Nations Security Council Resolution 2817 in March 2026. The third consisted of the states most directly implicated in the crisis, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, whose positions proved particularly difficult to reconcile. China, although closer to the first pattern, sent its ambassador to India as its representative rather than its foreign minister at a moment when President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing occupied a central place in its diplomatic agenda.

A comparison with previous episodes helps to assess the significance of the problem. Following the border clashes between China and India in Galwan in June 2020, BRICS continued issuing joint declarations at ministerial and summit meetings in subsequent years. In 2020, 2021, and 2022, the group produced consensus documents that did not directly address the bilateral conflict. The comparison does not suggest equivalence between the two episodes: the contexts are different, as is the scale of their regional implications. What the contrast allows us to observe is the difference between forms of managing disagreement.

In 2020, omitting the issue from official documents appears to have been sufficient to preserve consensual language. In 2026, the war in the Middle East generated a level of pressure that made such omission less viable. The outcome in New Delhi did not signify the weakening of BRICS’s substantive agenda. The ministers advanced discussions on issues such as reform of the United Nations Security Council, criticism of unilateral sanctions, counterterrorism, cooperation in artificial intelligence, and energy security. The final document reaffirmed the commitment to a two-state solution for Palestine and to the reform of international financial institutions.

The lack of consensus was concentrated primarily on the ongoing war. This pattern resembles the logic of selective convergence identified in recent BRICS literature: the group develops cohesion in areas where members’ interests are convergent or complementary but encounters limits when security issues involve direct and conflicting interests among members of the forum itself. The BRICS Convergence Index indicates that the group’s cohesion increased between 2009 and 2021 on economic issues, while the incorporation of security matters after 2015 increased exposure to disagreements among members.

This diagnosis is consistent with the literature on informal institutions. Studies on informal intergovernmental organizations indicate that lightly institutionalized formats can facilitate the accommodation of divergent interests among emerging powers precisely because of their flexibility and low institutional costs. The trade-off of this flexibility is the absence of formal mechanisms for dispute resolution among members. Assessments of BRICS’s trajectory indicate that the principle of advancing only on issues acceptable to all participants contributed to the group’s resilience, although it limited deeper cooperation in more sensitive areas. The New Delhi meeting suggests that this relationship between breadth and depth has become more evident following expansion.

The preparatory nature of the meeting for the September 2026 Leaders’ Summit gives the episode additional significance. Ministerial meetings within BRICS usually contribute to consolidating the agenda and drafting the documents that guide the summit. The difficulty in producing a joint declaration at the ministerial level shifts part of the task of managing differences to heads of state, as those differences remained unresolved among foreign ministers. The September Summit may indicate whether the format adopted in May will remain an exceptional solution or whether leaders will be able to rebuild some form of shared language.

The New Delhi meeting may be interpreted as a turning point in the way BRICS deals with the institutional effects of its expansion. Enlargement strengthened the group’s representative legitimacy but also increased the political costs of heterogeneity among its members. The episode does not invalidate BRICS as a platform for cooperation among Global South countries, but it suggests that its ability to build convergence on issues of international security has become more limited. In this context, the September Summit will be an important test of leaders’ willingness to preserve minimum mechanisms of political coordination within a broader, more diverse, and politically sensitive arrangement.

References

[1] Ministry of External Affairs, India. Chair’s Statement and Outcome Document at BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, 15 maio 2026. Disponível em: https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl%2F41144=.

[2] Lee, B. T. F.; Sims, J. P. Legitimacy Through Diversity: China’s Leadership in the BRICS+ Expansion for Global Balance. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2024. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-024-00411-6

[3] Sen, S. R. India Fails to Bridge Divide Over Iran War at BRICS Summit. Bloomberg, 15 maio 2026. Disponível em: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-05-15/india-fails-to-bridge-divide-over-iran-war-at-brics-summit.

[4] Toloraya, G. Military Stress Test: The War on Iran and BRICS Institutional Reform. Valdai Club, 2026. Disponível em: https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/military-stress-test-the-war-on-iran-and-brics/.

[5] The Wire. Iran-UAE Deadlock Precludes Joint Statement at BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. 2026. Disponível em: https://m.thewire.in/article/diplomacy/iranuae-deadlock-precludes-joint-statement-at-brics-foreign-ministers-meeting.

[6] Mohan, C. R. India’s BRICS Challenge: Managing a Divided Coalition. ISAS Briefs, National University of Singapore, 20 maio 2026. Disponível em: https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/indias-brics-challenge-managing-a-divided-coalition/.

[7] Observer Research Foundation. BRICS in a Fractured Order: What the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting Revealed. 20 maio 2026. Disponível em:https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/brics-in-a-fractured-order-what-the-foreign-ministers-meeting-revealed.

[8] BRICS India 2026. Site oficial da presidência indiana. Disponível em: https://www.brics2026.gov.in/.

[9] Papa, M.; Han, Z.; O’Donnell, F. The dynamics of informal institutions and counter-hegemony: introducing a BRICS Convergence Index. European Journal of International Relations, v. 29, n. 4, p. 949-975, 2023. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661231183352.

[10] Vabulas, F.; Snidal, D. Informal IGOs as Mediators of Power Shifts. Global Policy, v. 11, supl. 3, p. 40-51, 2020. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12869.

[11] Kirton, J.; Larionova, M. The First Fifteen Years of the BRICS. International Organisations Research Journal, v. 17, n. 2, p. 11-38, 2022. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.17323/1996-7845-2022-02-01.