What is BRICS to Republika Srpska and how much would it cost to turn to that alliance?

In the last few months, Radio and Television of the Republic of Srpska (RTRS) has published dozens of articles in which they write positively about BRICS and the perspective of the Republic of Srpska in that international organization made up of nine countries, the largest of which are Russia, China, India and Brazil.

This perspective is often presented as an alternative or in complete opposition to the European Union.

But economics professor Faruk Hadžić says that "BRICS is something that is not the European Union" because the Union, unlike an ambitious global alliance, is a geopolitical organization in which there is a greater level of integration between member countries in both economic and political terms.

"It's not BRICS," says Hodžić clearly.

He explains that BRICS is an international organization where various cooperations are agreed upon.

"But it should be emphasized that this does not mean that they will not go through some political or geopolitical grouping where there will be formal institutions that will make a certain number of decisions. This is one big difference between BRICS and the European Union. The question arises for the aspects of Bosnia and Herzegovina, considering that more and more voices are being raised in the public - where is the place of Bosnia and Herzegovina in general", says Hadžić.

In the media in Republika Srpska, especially on the Public Broadcasting Service, in the last few months a significant number of texts and articles about the international organization BRICS have been published, uncritically presenting its potential as an alternative to the European Union, which, according to these texts, is "in crisis". Apart from the media in Republika Srpska, BRICS is mostly promoted by pro-Russian media.

A series of texts about BRICS was closely related to the meeting of the countries of this alliance in the Russian city of Kazan, in which the President of the Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik also participated - "Putin: Humanity needs BRICS - without it there is no survival" and "Does the strengthening of BRICS fail -and a growing headache for the West? The upcoming summit in Kazan is the most massive so far", are just some of the headlines on the RTRS website.

"The European Union is going through a transformation and it is, by all accounts, significantly negative for the European Union itself. The European Union has nothing today. There is no raw material, no energy, no leader, a European leader," said Dodik in an interview for RTRS entitled "Let's go proudly to BRICS, even though the West will see it as a reason for a new attack on Serbia", published on October 20, 2024. year.

 

In the text of the same state media, a day later, the text "Russian NTV: The President of Republika Srpska explained the difference between the EU and BRICS" was published.

"BRICS is an organization of countries that respect and cooperate with each other. This is a world of cooperation, not ultimatums. The European Union is an organization for blackmail," Dodik said in the text, adding that "for Republika Srpska, which is part of BiH, as well as for Serbia, every dialogue with EU officials represents another complaint" and that, "for many on For the Balkans, BRICS is a very attractive alliance".

The focus of the region towards BRICS is a problem if it represents a realistic foreign policy alternative for countries that are geographically in Europe, believes Aleksandar Jakovljević, foreign policy associate of the ISAC fund from Belgrade.

"BRICS focuses on the economic and political cooperation of member states, primarily in the form of creating an alternative global structure. However, while the organization serves as a place of dialogue and cooperation, in the institutional sense it is currently insufficiently developed to achieve more serious changes in the world", says Jakovljević and emphasizes that this primarily comes from the fact that Russia is one of the founding members of BRICS.

And the essence of the popularization of the topic about the economic potential of BRICS for the Republic of Srpska is reflected in the text and video of RTRS "Why is BRICS a good chance for the economy of Srpska in the conditions of the crisis in the EU?".

Among other things, RTRS writes in the explanation that the population of the countries of this organization makes up almost half of the world, that their gross domestic product is three times larger than the G7 countries, and that the BRICS countries dominate oil production and contribute significantly to global economic prosperity.

"The EU is in crisis and that crisis will not last for a short time. It will take longer, and the policies that the EU has led have now come to pay for the European Union. (...) Now we need to try to enter the BRICS market in a systematic way in terms of preparing our companies to see which companies have potential both through products and human capacities, to research and see where they can position themselves," he says in the attachment. RTRS, President of the Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of Srpska, Pero Đorić.

But the current foreign trade exchange with the BRICS countries is unfavorable and in some cases minimal and negligible. Hadžić illustrates the importance of BRISC for the economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"For every hundred marks we import from BRICS member countries, we return 5.5 convertible marks. And the best illustration of how much we have a significant trade exchange with Russia and China is that we export more of our products to North Macedonia than to China and Russia - together," says Hadžić.

He adds that Bosnia and Herzegovina has one of the largest foreign trade deficits with China, that is, that BiH's exports products compared to the import of Chinese products is almost negligible.

 

Exports are key, says Hadžić, and adds that without exports, there is no economic growth, no growth of the gross domestic product, and precisely because of this connection and proximity to the European Union, we achieve significant positive effects that could be far greater.

And the import-export relationship with the European Union, according to Hadžić, looks like this: We have the largest trade exchange with the European Union - more than 70 percent of total exports. Together with the countries of the Western Balkans, which are also candidates for membership in the European Union, it is more than 90 percent.

Also, according to him, there are no customs duties on products from the European Union, nor are there any customs duties on products from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"If we were to turn completely now, hypothetically, to the member countries of BRICS, we would come overnight to the stage of economic collapse. Because we wouldn't be able to compensate all those exports to the European Union among these member countries," says Hadžić.

The same is written about BRICS in Serbia. As Jakovljević says, the presentation of BRICS as a powerful organization in the pro-Russian media in Serbia is systematic.

"The purpose of this is to create an image in which the global scene is rapidly changing in favor of Russia. The great summit in Kazan this October is often presented as a historical turning point, and an opportunity is rarely missed to evaluate BRICS as free and the European Union as blackmailing", says Jakovljević.

He says that the media often emphasizes the fact that the vast majority of BRICS countries, with the exception of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, do not recognize Kosovo, which is presented as a positive side in relation to the European Union.

Also, the media presentation of BRICS is often accompanied by anti-Western messages that are dominant, says Jakovljević.

"In accordance with the views of the members, this anti-Western attitude appears most often in the pro-Russian media in the region. Those media often write about BRICS as a factor that will shape the new world order, while at the same time they write about the downfall of the West and the collapse of NATO. Therefore, incorrect bases are much more present", says Jakovljević.

In the ISAC text from October 2024 dedicated to the views on BRICS in Serbia - RT, Sputnik, Informer and Srbin.info were identified as pro-Russian media.

But, according to Jakovljević, BRICS does not have a decision-making mechanism, so it is very difficult for the group to have a unique appearance on the international stage, which leads to the frequent question of whether BRICS should be characterized as an anti-Western organization, or as a neutral organization that advocates reforms of world institutions.