BRICS-EU: Bilateral Partners and Global Rivals

摘要

The BRICS group has gone a long way from being the simple acronym to becoming global political player. While it remains undecided whether the BRICS will evolve into a comprehensive, consolidated alliance in global politics, the trend towards increased collaboration and institutionalization now indicates that this may well be feasible. The article examines the relationship between the European Union and BRICS and seeks to understand whether the EU and BRICS are more likely partners or rivals. It analyses the BRICS agenda in comparison to the EU's interests and focuses on EU-BRICS countries' bilateral relations. The article concludes that on global issues BRICS and the EU have many controversies while on a state-to-state level they are interested in partnership and cooperation.