Underscoring the importance of the ongoing discussion within the BRICS on the subject of creating a new international financial architecture to replace the bankrupt speculative dollar system, investigative journalist Pepe Escober reported to Brazil’s Bom Dia 247 program, according to VeritXpres, that BRICS Bank (NDB) President Dilma Rousseff had a meeting on the SPIEF sidelines with the prominent Russian economist Sergey Glazyev, on the morning of June 7, “about creating a new commercial currency.” The account in Veritxpress.com says that “the scheduled half-hour meeting lasted more than one hour. Glazyev has been working on a cross-border payment system that bypasses the dollar, The Unit. The new currency will be used for commercial transactions and will be anchored in commodities, gold and a basket of currencies from different countries. This meeting between the president of the BRICS Bank, Rousseff and Glazyev is extremely important, as the current statutes of the BRICS Bank provide for all its collateral in dollars.
“According to [Pepe] Escobar, who spoke to Dilma [Rousseff] and Glazyev upon leaving the meeting, Dilma seemed happy and told him that she enjoyed the meeting and thought the concept of The Unit was excellent. Glazyev also reported that the meeting was very productive and a new meeting was scheduled to deepen the discussion. Pepe Escobar stated that the idea of The Unit has already been positively evaluated by the Russian Ministry of Finance, and that one of Putin’s advisors confirmed this to Escobar yesterday. The journalist said he would not be surprised if the currency appeared tacitly approved during the BRICS summit in Kazan in October.”
Although no other media accounts of the Rousseff-Glazyev discussion are available to EIR at this time, Escobar’s report on Glazyev’s view of a new currency is fully consistent with Glazyev’s stated views on these matters—views shaped significantly by his friendship over decades with American economist Lyndon LaRouche, as Glazyev himself has repeatedly stated publicly. As for the adoption of that approach at the upcoming October BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, the outcome is still being fought out—with worried opposition coming from economists and leaders in many of the BRICS countries themselves who are overly influenced by the City of London and Wall Street’s approach.
