Business-Managed Democracy

Bilderberg

The Bilderberg conference is held each year at an expensive hotel in Europe or North America. It is named after the hotel in the Netherlands (pictured) where the first conference was held in 1954. The 120 or so people invited attend in a private rather than official capacity and the conference aims to enhance "mutual understanding".

According to BBC correspondent Emma Jane Kirby:

Bilderberg, which was founded in the 1950s by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, is said to steer international policy from behind closed doors.
Its critics say that it is a capitalist organisation which operates entirely through self interest.
By anyone's standards, it is a bit of a mystery.
There are no members as such - instead, an invitation list is comprised each year by an unknown steering committee, but participants are mainly leading and powerful figures in the fields of business and politics.

"It is essential that these discussions be kept out of the public sphere. The lengths to which the organisers go are quite astonishing. An entire hotel is taken over in advance (existing guests being moved out) and a whole caravanserai, including special catering staff and armed security guards, descend on the site several days in advance."

Participants

It is attended by North American and European corporate leaders (from BP, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Shell, Unilever, Barclays), bankers, top politicians – including heads of state and royalty – and military leaders, and senior newsmedia (who are not there to report on the discussions). (List of those attending Bilderberg conferences)

Bilderberg steering Committee members have included:

David Rockefeller, former director on the Council on Foreign Relations and co-founder of the Trilateral Commission
Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State
James D. Wolfensohn, formerly president of the World Bank,
Conrad Black, newspaper publisher
Giovanni Agnelli, former chair of Fiat, and
Jorma Ollila, chair of Nokia and of Shell.

An analysis of the 1999 list of people attending Bilderberg found that those "from the U.S. are almost always members of the Council on Foreign Relations, and since 1973 Japanese elites have been brought into the fold through a third overlapping group, the Trilateral Commission".

Discussions at Bilderberg Conferences

The Bilderberg group describes its meetings as being unique for:

the broad cross-section of leading citizens that are assembled for nearly three days of informal and off-the-record discussion about topics of current concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs and the international economy;
the strong feeling among participants that in view of the differing attitudes and experiences of the Western nations, there remains a clear need to further develop an understanding in which these concerns can be accommodated;
the privacy of the meetings, which has no purpose other than to allow participants to speak their minds openly and freely.

Future presidents and prime ministers have been invited including Bill Clinton (in 1991 - became president in 1993), Tony Blair (1993 - became Leader of Opposition in 1994 and PM in 1997), and various presidents of the European Union, all before they were elected to those positions. "This has led to accusations that the group pushes its favoured politicians into high office. But Viscount Davignon [head of Bilderberg] says his steering committee are simply excellent talent spotters... But its critics say Bilderberg's selection process gives an extra boost to aspiring politicians whose views are friendly to big business."

Bilderberg

Participants

Discussions at Bilderberg Conferences

Links