2000 Bilderberg
Conference, June 1-3, Brussels, Belgium
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2000 Bilderberg
Conference, June 1-3, Brussels, Belgium
Euro-Green party researcher Grattan Healy and I tuck into dinner in the bar of Genval’s five-star Chateau du Lac hotel, just outside Brussels. For once, our minds are not on the food. Rather, how to figure out whether or not the super-secretive Bilderberg club will tomorrow have this hotel sealed off for their notorious annual meeting.
Bilderberg takes it’s name from a hotel in Holland where their first secret transatlantic conference took place back in 1954. Original chairman and founder of the club, ex-SS Nazi Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands owned the place. Bilderberg’s ‘steering group’ boasts the wealthiest bankers and industrialists in the western world, no less.
Grattan’s research has shown how elite clubs like Bilderberg and the Trilateal Commission are managing somehow to install more of their members as European Commissioners, at the policy-making heart of Europe. And more recently links have been exposed with powerful European policymakers ERT, European Round Table of industrialists. The current Bilderberg chairman founded it. Green MEP Patricia McKenna has been getting embarrassing questions asked down at the European Union’s policy rubber stamping department, the Parliament.
As for me, I’m curious to see these Bilderbergers in the flesh for the first time after having researched their activities on and off for four years or so. Being stony broke I’ve got to Brussels from Bristol mostly by skipping trains, it’s got to be the right place after all that effort.
During a snoop round the hotel interior Grattan spots a sign pointing to a ‘Steering Committee Meeting’ meeting. A deliberate hoax? We’ll just have to find out in the morning.
Mike Peters, Marxist Sociology lecturer from Leeds, who has written one of the most comprehensive studies to date on the Bilderbergers, flew into Brussels late that evening Wednesday 31st June. Another chancer.
Arriving at the ‘Chateau’ the next morning we notice rear entrances have been padlocked and chained. Around the front, the mock-Florentine lobby has a rude addition, a white canvas entrance tunnel and drive-in awning has sprung up overnight. Is this to protect chauffeur-driven guests from the rain on this cloudless day...? or from prying eyes. This is no bum-steer, The Spotlight’s got the place all right.
This sometimes seemingly zenophobic right-wing American magazine seems to be the only media that consistently follows Bilderberg activities and the only source for where the meeting will be held. It's not difficult for the Bilderbergers PR people to discredit such a source.
About four the limos begin arriving. The shiny black Mercedes’ with their characteristic ‘B’ clearly displayed in the front windscreen. We can just see into the awning and film most of the participants as they emerge from the backs of the limos. Doormen attempt to hold makeshift curtains up to conceal the more sensitive guests. We manage mostly to film them between the gaps.
We have a chat with photographer and reporter for The Spotlight. What a sincere, concerned pair they seem, and we had been told Spotlight were neo-nazis. Chilling to think that without the bloodhound work of writer Jim Tucker no-one but the participants would know this meeting was taking place.
‘But we send out a press release...’, the Bilderberg office bleat if you bother to complain. What they don’t tell you is that you have to request it from the hotel (how is anyone supposed to know where to call?) and they only release it as everybody’s leaving. Too late for the press.
Thursday 1st June is a bank holiday in Belgium. Families are out in the sun, taking a stroll round the lovely Genval lake, almost oblivious to the capitalist heavyweights emerging from limos feet away inside the awning.
The regulars are arriving, Conrad Black, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Kenneth Clarke, David Rockefeller, James Wolfenson, president of the World Bank.
The new Chairman, Viscount Etienne Davignon, comes out to get what, we joke, looks like a bag of drugs from his car. He owns most of the public utilities and one of the biggest banks in Belgium. ‘Will you be holding a press conference Mr Davignon?’ Grattan shouts, ‘I don’t think so’ Davignon replies. ‘Why not’. ‘We don’t have enough important things to say’.
Capitalism's heavyweights are rolling up now. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘It’s Jean-Claude Trichet’. ‘Who’s he?’ ‘The next boss of the European Central Bank’..He obviously won’t have anything important to say either... ‘What about this one?’ ‘That’s Daniel Vasella, CEO of Novartis with William McDonough, president of the Federal Reserve bank of New York’ ‘That one’s the boss of the Washington Post and hey, there goes George Soros! Look, it’s one of the new European Commissioners, Pascal Lamy!’ This looks like an elite to me.
Another brand-new Merc. arrives. An aloof looking guest turns away from the cameras. We look at each other and shake our heads, another one we don’t recognise. One of us calls out to him: ‘Are you a big shit sir?’
The passing Belgian public are hanging around, they seem spellbound by the line of polished black Mercs. ‘What’s going on?’, they keep asking, in French, as we prepare for the next arrival. ‘It’s Bilderberg’. They nod in reply, as if they know what we mean, then shuffle off looking puzzled.
Untouchable elite types swinging out of limos next to a busy public road and footpath. Clearly an uptight securityman’s nightmare. Men with bulging sweaters or badly-fitting jackets wearing dark glasses walk back and forth. Ah, that’ll be the plain clothes Belgian secret service with their guns then. I ask one if he knows what’s going on at the hotel, ‘I don’know’, he smiles, baring rat-like teeth. He’s not a good actor, glad I can’t see his eyes. A big CIA officer turns up and orders the Belgians around, they know their place.
This year’s Bilderberg had to be hastily rearranged after the Austrian anti-EU ‘Freedom Party’ was elected hence we and the public are so close by. We might never get this opportunity again. If they had met as planned in Austria there would probably have been official criticism and heaps of publicity. For a cabal all publicity is bad publicity.
Bilderberg does everything it can to conceal where it’s meeting and doesn’t bother with a press conference any more. Okay, out the window go journalistic freedoms which are the lynch pin of any democracy. Inside, media barons and compliant writers from The Economist, sworn to secrecy, smooch year after year.
They have created a vacuum. We get on the telephone.
On Saturday morning Belgian daily ‘De Morgen’ delivered the goods with a lead front page story by the ex-editor all about the no longer quite so secret Bilderberg conference. Critical and amusing coverage on national Belgian TV news and in papers and satirical magazines followed into the week. In stead of being secret the conference was one of the big stories of the week. In Belgium.
When the national papers phoned the mayor of the local Genval principality he said they must be joking! If Queen Beatrix and Henry Kissinger were there he’d know about it. Bilderberg, it seems, is above politics.
Politicians, newspaper editors, European commissioners and civil servants who agree to enter Bilderberg swear complete secrecy. Not just about the content of the meeting but about the very existence of Bilderberg. They leave their accountability at the door. Have the bankers grown so arrogant that they now see democratic institutions and public opinion simply as competition to be taken out.
Just as the Bilderbergers were leaving on the Saturday two secret service asked the Spotlight photographer to show a Belgian press pass then threatened to beat him up. They chased him into a nearby taverna where he was rescued by boss and waiters only to be chased again at the local station. He made a narrow escape by running across the tracks to jump on a train going the wrong way. Surreal.
Was someone about to leave the hotel they didn’t want him snapping? Clinton was in Aachen that day, just down the road. Bilderberg have been shown to accidentally leave heads of government off the official attendance list before. Just one question we wanted to ask at the press conference that never was.
Bilderberg stretches our credulity, particularly when their habitually anonymous supporters use angry disinformation, mud-slinging and ‘guilt by association’ in a shabby attempt to discredit critics.
According to the hotel, this year’s meeting was a croquet tournament ‘with some well-known spectators’. Another cover story was that the French football team were staying. Even the security name tags said Brussels 2000, just like the football.
These power-brokers lie too easily. The more facts that emerge about Bilderberg’s key role in lobbying for a corporate controlled Europe and the more lies they disseminate to try to cover themselves the more healthy suspicion they arouse.
Why, for example, might Tony Blair have said in answer to a parliamentary question by Christopher Gill MP in March 1998 that no members of his cabinet had attended Bilderberg meetings, when he himself clearly was on the official Athens conference list in 1993 before becoming Labour leader? His attendance was even commented on by William Rees-Mogg in The Times! The Danish parliament is considering banning all politicians from attending.
So who’s in charge? The bankers or the politicians? What about the proverb that says ‘the borrower is servant to the lender’? Can Bilderberg politicians like Clarke, Blair and Mandelson be trusted? And are the governments of the world now just PR and tax managers for the banks?
There simply has to be a thorough international examination of this private little bankers’ club that has toes in so many political doors. And we must catch up on the right’s ability to cut through complex-sounding economics gibberish. They have taken the lead on Bilderberg because they understand the power of the bankers far better than we do on the left.
Economic priorities detrimental to ordinary people in the west, not to mention the developing world, are pushed forward at Bilderberg by the ruling class, those who have more influence than anyone else over the future, in total secret. It’s time to call this elite cabal to account and ensure their meetings are fully scrutinised.
BILDERBERG MEETINGS
3 June 2000
The 48th Bilderberg meeting was held in Brussels, Belgium, 1-3 June 2000.
Among other subjects the Conference discussed US Elections, Globalisation,
New Economy, the Balkans, EU Enlargement, the European Far Right.
Approximately 100 participants from North America and Europe attended the
discussions. The meeting was private in order to encourage frank and open
discussion.
Bilderberg takes its name from the hotel in Holland where the first meeting
took place in May 1954. That pioneering meeting grew out of the concern expressed
by leading citizens on both sides of the Atlantic that Western Europe and
North America were not working together as closely as they should on common
problems of critical importance. It was felt that regular, off-the-record
discussions would help create a better understanding of the complex forces
and major trends affecting Western nations in the difficult post-war
period.
The cold war has now ended. But in practically all respects there are more,
not fewer, common problems - from trade to jobs, from monetary policy to
investment, from ecological challenges to the task of promoting international
security. It is hard to think of any major issue in either Europe or North
America whose unilateral solution would not have repercussions for the
other
Thus the concept of a European-American forum has not been overtaken by time.
The dialogue between these two regions is still - even increasingly - critical.
What is unique about Bilderberg as a forum is the broad cross-section of
leading citizens that are assembled for nearly three days [in this case roughly
two days, ed.] 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 han
to allow participants to speak their minds openly and freely
In short Bilderberg is a small, flexible, informal and off-the-record
international forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual
understanding enhanced.
Bilderberg's only activity is its annual conference. At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued. Since 1954, forty seven conferences have been held. The names of the participants are made available to the press. Participants are chosen for their experience, their knowledge, and their standing; all participants attend Bilderberg in a private and not an official capacity. There are usually about 120 participants of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third are from government and politics, and two thirds from finance, industry, labor, education, communications. [I see no representatives of trades unions here at all, ed.]
Participants have agreed not to give interviews to the press during the meeting. In contacts with the news media after the conference it is an established rule that no attribution should be made to individual participants of what was discussed during the meeting.
There will be no press conference. A list of participants is appended.
BILDERBERG MEETINGS
Brussels, Belgium
1-3 June 2000
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
3 June 2000
B, Etienne Davignon; Chairman, Société Générale de Belgique;
GB, J. Martin Taylor; Chairman, WH Smith Group PLC, International Adviser, Goldman Sachs International
I, Agnelli, Giovanni; Honourary Chairman, Fiat SpA.
I, Agnelli, Umberto; Chairman, IFIL - Finanziaria di Partecipazioni SpA.
E, Aguirre y Gil de Biedma, Esperenza; President, The Spanish Senate
USA, Allaire, Paul; Chairman of the boardof Directors and CEO, Xerox Corporation
I, Ambrosetti, Alfredo, Ambrosetti Group
DK, Andersen, Bodil Nyboe; Governor, Central Bank of Denmark
CDN, Asper, Israel; Chairman, CanWest Capital Group Inc.
INT, Avery, Graham; Chief Adviser for Enlargement, European Community
P, Balsemão, Francisco Pinto; Professor of Communication Science, New University, Lisbon; Chairman, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.
S, Barnevik, Percy; Chairman, Investor AB
NL, Benschop, Dick; State Secretary for European Affairs
I, Bernabè, Franco; Special Representative of Italy for Reconstruction Initiatives in the Balkans
D, Betz, Hans-Georg; Visiting Proffessor, European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Columbia and New York Universities
INT, Bildt, Carl; Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Balkans, United Nations
CDN, Black, Conrad; Chair, Telegraph Group Ltd.
IRL, Bruton, John; Leader of Fine Gael (Opposition Party)
GB, Buchanan, Robin WT; Senior Partner, Bain & Co Inc.
GB, Clarke, Kenneth; Member of Parliament (Conservative)
TR, Çolakoglu, Nuri; Chairman and CEO, NTV
F, Collomb, Bertrand; Chairman and CEO, Lafarge
D, Cromme, Gerhard; Chairman of the Executive Board, Thyssen Krupp AG
GR, David, George A; Chairman of the Board, Hellenic Bottling Company SA
USA, Deutch, John M, Institute Professor, MIT; Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.)
GR, Diamandouros, P Nikiforos; National Ombudsman
USA, Dodd, Christopher J; Senator (Democrat, Connecticut)
USA, Donilon, Thomas E; Senior Vice-President, General Counsel and Secretary, FannieMae
USA, Dyson, Esther; Chairman, EDventure Holdings Inc.
INT, Fréchette, Louise; Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations
I, Fresco, Paolo; Chairman, Fiat SpA
CDN, Frum, David; Columnist, National Post Newspaper
P, Gouveia, Teresa Patrício; Member of Parliament (PSD)
USA, Graham, Donald E; Publisher, The Washington Post
USA, Hagel, Chuck; Senator (Republican, Nebraska)
NL, Halberstadt, Victor; Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary-General of Bilderberg Meetings
N, Hambro, Christian; Director-General, Research Council of Norway
A, Hampel, Erich; Chairman, Creditanstalt-Bankverein
USA, Hutchison, Kay Bailey; Senator (Republican, Texas)
B, Huyghebaert, Jan; Chairman, Almanij NV
B, Janssen, Daniel E; Chairman, Solvay SA
S, Johansson, Leif; President and CEO, Volvo AB
USA, Johnson, James A; Chairman and CEO, Johnson Capital Partners
USA, Jordan Jr, Vernon E; Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
TR, Kayhan, Muharrem; Vice-Chairman of the Board, Söktas, Former President, Tusiad
USA, Kissinger, Henry A; Chairman, Kissinger Associates Inc.
D, Kopper, Hilmar; Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG
USA, Kravis, Henry R; Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
USA, Kravis, Marie-Josée; Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute Inc.
INT, Lamy, Pascal; Commissioner, European Commission
F, Lévy-Lang, André; Former Chairman, Paribas
B, Lippens, Maurice; Chairman, FORTIS Bank
FIN, Lipponen, Paavo; Prime Minister
USA, Mathews, Jessica T; President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
USA, McDonough, William J; President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
F, Montbrial, Thierry de; Director, French Institure of International Relations
INT, Moore, Mike; Director-General, WTO
D, Nass, Matthias; Deputy Editor, Die Zeit
NL, Queen Beatrix; Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands and of the House of Orange
FIN, Ollila, Jorma; Chairman of the Board and CEO, Nokia Corporation
INT, Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso; Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank
S, Pagrotsky, Leif; Minister of Trade
GR, Papandreou, George A; Minister for Foreign Affairs
S, Petersson, Lars-Eric; President and CEO, Skandia
A, Petritsch, Wolfgang; The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina; EU chief negotiator at the Kosovo peace talks in Rambouillet and Paris
CH, Pury, David de; Chairman, de Pury Pictet Turrettini & Co Ltd.
DK, Rasmussen, Anders Fogh; Chairman, Liberal Party
N, Reiten, Eivind; Executive Vice-President, Corporate Management, Norsk Hydro SA
USA, Richardson, Bill; Secretary of Energy
I, Riotta, Gianni; Deputy Editor, La Stampa
USA, Rockefeller, David; Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank International Advisory Council
E, Rodriguez Inciarte, Matías, Executive Vice Chairman, BSCH
GB, Roll, Eric; Senior Adviser, UBS Warburg
I, Ruggiero, Renato; Vice-Chairman, Schroder Salomon Smith Barney; Chairman, Schroder Salomon Smith Barney Italy
A, Scholten, Rudolf; Member of the board of executive directors, Öesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
B, Schoutheete de Tervarent, Ph de; Former permanant representative of Belgium to the EU
DK, Seidenfaden, Tøger; Editor-in-Chief, Politiken
INT, Solana Madariaga, Javier; Secretary General, Council of the European Union
USA, Soros, George; Chairman, Soros Fund Management
USA, Steinberg, James B; Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
F, Strauss-Kahn, Dominique; Former Minister of Finance; Professor, University of Paris
KS, Surroi, Veton; Publisher, KOHA Ditore
IRL, Sutherland, Peter D; Chairman, Goldman Sachs International; Chairman, BP Amoco PLC
USA, Tarullo, Daniel K; Visiting Profesor of Law, Georgetown University Law centre
USA, Thornton, John L; President and CEO, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
I, Tremonti, Giulio; Member of the Finance Commission, Chamber of Deputies
F, Trichet, Jean-Claude; Governor, Banque de France
CH, Vasella, Daniel L; Chairman and CEO, Novartis AG
NL, Veer, Jeroen van der; Group managing director, Royal Dutch/Shell group of companies; designate President of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company
USA, Vink, Lodewijk JR de; Chairman, President and CEO, Warner-Lambert Company
A, Vranitzky, Franz; Former Federal Chancellor
S, Wallenberg, Jacob; Chairman of the Board, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken
GB, Wolf, Martin; Associated Editor/Economics Commentator [what does this mean???]
INT/USA, Wolfensohn, James D; President, The World Bank
D, Wolff von Amerongen, Otto; Chairman and CEO of Otto Wolff GmbH
USA, Wolfowitz, Paul; Dean, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The John Hopkins University
GB, Mickelthwait, R. John; United States Editor, The Economist
GB, Wooldridge, Adrian D; Foreign Correspondent, The Economist
A Austria
B Belgium
CH Switzerland
CDN Canada
D Germany
DK Denmark
E Spain
F France
FIN Finland
GB Great Britain
GR Greece
INT International
I Italy
IRL Ireland
KS Kosova
N Norway
NL Netherlands
P Portugal
S Sweden
TR Turkey
USA United States of America
Vice-Chair of the European Commission in the 1980's, Viscount Etienne Davignon is Chairman of Societe Generale De Belgique - massive Banking and Utility conglomerate in Belgium . He is also Chair of the European Round Table of Industrialists, who formulate anti-democratic policy for the European Commission to implement. Davignon is a founder member of and President of AMUE, the Association for the Monetary Union of Europe as well as being a member of David Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission, The European Institute in Washington and a Director of Anglo American mining. He was, and may still be, a govenor of the Ditchley foundation and helps run Kissinger Associates.
Chateau Du Lac is a Belgium owned, unique 5 star deluxe property with panoramic lake views. This historic castle has been completely renovated to modern standards. The 121 rooms are well equipped with the latest luxurious amenities ideal location for meetings, incentives, weddings, and relaxed weekends. There are eight golf clubs within 10KM, a well known relaxation centre with sauna, jacuzzi and fitness facilities on site with an excellent atmosphere for the business and leisure traveller. The hotel is located only 12km south of Brussels and 20km from Brussels Airport.
The Chateau Du Lac Hotel
Avenue Du Lac 87
Brussels
1332
Belgium
Phone: 02-6557111
Fax: 02-6557444
>From: "David Parks" <davep@exeterleft.freeserve.co.uk>
>To: "Tomato" <tomto5@yahoo.com>,
<mayday2000@egroups.com>
>Subject: [mayday2000] Re: contacting groups with questions (was)
>[off-topic] Bilderberg & "The Shop"
>Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 18:21:42 +0100
>The Bilderberg conspiracy theory is a variant on the fascist world Jewish
>Conspiracy theory and has no place in our movement. It is predominantly
>advocated by fascists and chauvinist sections of the ruling class who
>believe that Bilderberg is a conspircacy for German occupation of Britain
>via a Federal Europe to form a "Fourth Reich".
From: fabian@unpopular.demon.co.uk
Sent: 18 April 2000 01:58
Subject: [mayday2000] Fuck off Schnews
Please do not send any money to Schnews, they run adds for nazis:
I do not know if there was any reply when Schnews were questioned about advertising right-wing anti-bilderberg stuff. It just seems they are being evasive to me.
I would like to see some sort of clear statement about all of this from them I would like to know why they push extreme right wing groups.
Leutha Blissett
It is about the group Bilderberg: an association of the richest people on earth. They met last weekend by the lakeside, near the linguistic border. Names were given, but without certainty, because the region was watched by the slaves of money, looking like Rambo. Even; the Queen of Netherlands. She has no fears because she was born in a barrel of money. And many others too. We are wondering why these people should meet about such a subject: they have money! and then?
If there were creative bosses? Innovators such as Ernest Solvay or Gustave Boel, but no. It seems that particpants here are just heirs. Of what can such money people be discussing? Money naturally. They make measurements of respective fortunes and comparizons about. Is there a financial level under which you don't enter the club? Another level at which you enter the category of giving people? (we don't use the term of honour members what concern them)
Are they placed at table by protocol rank of money? Or yearly earning? We imagine the scene of bulletin: 'this one earned x billions of dollars in prostitution and drugs(applauses)'.
Jean-Paul Sartre said that man is nothing up to the moment he is doing: 'existence preceeds essence'. If nature accepts ineqalities, She does not in case of absurdities. With a billion people on earth living with a dollar per day, the presence of this monied band of clowns is exasperating.
He was political director to Foreign Minister, as first President of International Energy Agency and was vice-President of the European Commission. He was secretary of Tractebel since 1986 and vice-president since 1998. President of Société Générale de Belgique, Ichec, Sibeka, Union Miniere Belgique, President of the Permanent Committee and administration council of Wagons-lits and Tourism Belgique, Vice-President Fortis Bank Ag, Petrofina, Tractebel Belgique, Arbed (Luxembourg), Vice president of the watching committee Accor (France), Administrator Cimenteries Belges Reunies (CBR), Recticel, Salem, Sidmar, Sofina, Solvay SA, Foamex , Gilead (USA), Anglo-American, ICL (Great Britain), Pechiney (France), member of watching committee BASF (Germany), President of the Association for Monetary Unification of Europe, Fundation P.H.Spaak, Royal Institute for International Relations (Belgium) and personnally having 5768 auctions of Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux.(France).
The group of Bildenberg has held its yearly meeting from 1 to 3 June at the Castle by the lake, gathering between the most influent personnalities of the occidental world, although desistments of last minute. Etienne Davignon ,president of Societe generale, was the host of this quasi secret meeting which should have been held in austria ,but which was rapatried in belgium because of the floods of extreme right presence in Schlussel governement.The last conference of bildenberg in belgium dated from 1972,and was held in Knokke.
Davignon become this year the chairman of the group Bilderberg [!].He is one of the belgians who regularly attend to the sessions of this influent think thank,in supplement of Jan Huygebaerts of the Kredietbank.Others as Philippe Maystadt, Willy Claes and François Xavier de Donnea have attended by the occasion.
In Genval,personnalities of different orgin as the financial guru georges Soros,former first minister Carl Bildt, former secretary of US state Henry Kissinger, Queen Beatrix of Netherlands, governor of Bank of France Jean Claude Trichet , past president of Fiat ,Giovanni Agnelli, director of Kosovo paper Koha Ditore Veton Suroi and director of World bank James Wolfensohn have been seen.
The European commissaries Pascal Lamy and Pedro Solbes were between inviteds, on tracks of former Mario Monti, Emma Bonino and sir Leon Brittain.
But a few guests have even decommendated in last minute, as the ambassador Richard Holbrooke, High representant Javier Solana or Montenegro president, Milo Djukanovic.
Decried by the ones as inspirator of a New Global Order,sollicited by others as the indispensable hall for occidental dirigeants, Group of bilderberg held its first meeting in may 1954 in the hotel Bilderberg,near Arnheim in the Netherlands.
The idea was submitted to prins Bernhard to create a hall where participants, industrials and politics could freely expose their point of view and test projects of high interest.the hotel was ringed of body guards who ousted the journalists.
This tradition of secret was maintened from year to year,Bilderberg associating journalists or editor of great renom who engage themselves not to divulgue the minutes of seances.Each participant is hold by not giving interview during the meeting.After it , informations have the possibilities of beeing given without mention of the source.
Following a communique of the group bilderberg,the thems of discussion in Genval were elections in USA,mondialisation,New economics,Balkans,enlargment of Europe and european extreme right.
Queen Beatrix, Kissinger and other Rockefeller have spoken about the future of world economics in Genval. Do you know the group bilderberg? If your answer is negative, its normal!
This group who holds its name from an hotel from netherlands where the group first met in 1954 at the initiative of Prince Bernhard,doesn't like to have publicity.Thus it is in whole discretion that from thursday to saturday was held a meeting at the chateau du lac of genval,alone five sterred hotel in wallonie.During three days the place turned into a truly fortress.All indesirables were thrown out and meetings were prohibited.
Saturday yet a competition of golf croquet was not held before 15 hours as the invited were quiting.
And these 100 were considered people! At the invitation of viscount Davignon,organizer of the rendez-vous fellowing the american paper The Spotlight,people saw Queen Beatrix of Netherlands,aside of Henry Kissinger,former secretary of State of USA, David Rockefeller, president of Chase Manhattan Bank,Doinique Strauss Kahn,former minister of economics or belgian personnalities as Maurice lippens or Daniel Janssen.The Queen of Spain was announced but decommandated at the last moment.Certain sources are indicating us that just before his departure to aix la chapelle (Aachen),president of USA would have spent the night of thrsday to friday in the chateau du lac,but this presence is [démentie] by others.On the side of the district of gendarmerie of Wavre,WE WERE REFUSED ANY INFORMATION.[in normal character]
So from part of the hotel,where they signaled us that they were really themselves not exactly knowing what was happening.
What have all these people spoken from? Not a word upon this. Fellowing the spotlight, bilderberg is busy every year on problems of international actuality.
To give an enlighten advise upon future of international economics, American elections or European Union.
1. De Morgen: full page 9
Title: Bildenberg conference: an 'open 'debate behind closed doors.
Picture of Queen Beatrix surprised by the camera under the title. The paper
is speaking too of the trilateral commission under title: Instrument of amrican
strategy for european establishment binding.The television RTL-TVI spoke
with Lippens.(they don t write what they say).(television official name is
Radio Tele Luxemburg).Burgmester of Brussels city is Francois Xavier de Donnea,
invited at Bilderberg meeting in Atlanta-1997.
last column right: Secret work with Conjuration at the hand
The spotlight, ultra-right American weekly which let know that Bilderberg
were holding a conference in Genval is convinced that the Bilderbergers have
a hidden political schedule to install a New Order. But is it what it seems?
Is it more subtle than that? Maybe they try to obtain a 'consensus' which
will help their sphere of influence to obtain this result.
How come nobody could know about the conference of Genval? Because the organisers were fearing protesters like Seattle is the official answer (from Bilderbergers). So that the media shall have nothing to write about say the conspiracy lovers.
As usual, the truth will be found in the middle. Nobody wants to enlighten us: the staff of the hotel received the order not to take any phone calls on the subject. In the 'secretariat' offices of Bilderberg in Amsterdam it is also quiet. Why the assisting person obliged to keep silence? Why are health, agriculture, environment not discussed at these meeting? What is the role of the House of Orange and Dutch Queen Beatrix? How much time yet about the Bilderberg?
2.La Lanterne:
45 lines ,one column up on the right side.
sumup of general info given in saturday edition of 'De Morgen'
Title: Genval, Center of the World
New information: The hotel Chateau Du Lac explained that only a European
Competition of Croquet took place at the hotel. Adding 'with well-known
spectators' as ironical conclusion.
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2000--
Members Consist of Distinguished International Business, Financial, and Former Government Leaders Salomon Smith Barney announced today that Umberto Agnelli, Chairman of IFIL S.p.A. and Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IFI - Istituto Finanziario Industriale S.p.A., has joined the International Advisory Board of Salomon Smith Barney.
Mr. Agnelli, 65, has had a long and distinguished career in international business. Prior to becoming Chairman of IFIL, Mr. Agnelli was Chairman of Fiat Auto, and Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Fiat S.p.A. He is Vice Chairman of the Giovanni Agnelli e C. S.a.p.az., and a member of the Boards of Directors of Danone, Worms & Cie and Worms & Co., Inc. Mr. Agnelli is a member of the International Advisory Boards of Allianz, and a member of the Managing Council of Assonime (Association of Italian quoted and non-quoted companies). He is also Co-Chairman of the Italy-Japan Business Group, European member of the Bilderberg Meetings and member of the Italian Group of the Trilateral Commission. From 1976 to 1979, Mr. Agnelli was Senator of the Italian Republic.
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 17:14:13 -0700
From: Tony Blizzard <libertylobby@earthlink.net>
To: Steven Swan <stevenswan@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: New Controversy At Free Republic Over Spotlight
You might also inform the uninformed (or disinformation specialists) on free republic that The SPOTLIGHT HAS NEVER MADE ANY EDITORIAL POLICY (EXPLICIT OR OTHERWISE) ON THE TRUTH OF THE HOLOCAUST.
Free republic sounds exactly like another ADL (Mossad in the US) asset.
If any of you go to Free Republic, tell the neo-cons there to back up their accusations that The SPOTLIGHT is racist with some PROOF. They won't find any.
The truth is the site is just one more phony "patriot" site that is really a CIA, Mossad, or other new world order gathering ground that registers true patriots for future dealings and directs what would be patriotic thought in the way they want it to go.
Either that or Robinson is one more fundamentalist Zionist who just can't stand any truth about Israel or even any particular Jew, if he isn't excused of any and all excesses with a ritual ass kissing.
If you want THE REAL TRUTH of what's going on, you will want to read The SPOTLIGHT, an international weekly that has NO FEAR OF THE TALMUDIC BRANCH OF JEWS AND THEIR ZIONIST LACKEYS.
It costs a ton of money to operate a web site such as Free Republic or worldnetdaily or newsmax, when are patriots going to ask from where that money comes?
Tony Blizzard
Prins Bernhard, founder of the Bilderberg Group, is after an operation on thursdag (11/5) still in hospital (Academic hospital Utrecht - UMC). His condition was critical but now seems stable. Queen Beatrix was with him tonight. For more information:
http://teletekst.nos.nl/cgi-bin/tt/nos/page/t/106
http://www.koninklijkhuis.nl/UK/welcome.html
The Commission considers it important that its members take part in the work of international forums and express their point of view on issues of political relevance. As the Commission had the opportunity to recall in reply to oral and written questions by Members of Parliament1 its members exercise a political function and, while honouring the obligations imposed by the function, remain free to express their political opinions quite independently and under their own responsibility.
Mr. Solbes Mira was a member of the international executive committee of the Trilateral Commission. He presented his resignation when he entered into office as a member of the European Commission. The activities of the Trilateral Commission and the nature of membershipof this Commission are not such as to warrant mention in the declaration of interests. Mr. Solbes Mira and Mr. Patten are members of the Trilateral Commission, membership which entails no responsibilities or commitments, but which is conferred by virtue of being selected to be invited to participate in meetings of the Trilateral Commission.
Concerning Bilderberg meetings, Mr. Lamy intends to take part in the meeting next June. As far as participation of members of the former Commission in Bilderberg meetings is concerned, only travel expenses and daily allowances were charged on the budget of the institution.
Conrad Black, the amputating baron
Canadian media baron Conrad Black jabs a finger salute at striking Calgary Herald journalist Andy Marshall in a confrontation outside a Calgary hotel. Journalists had confronted their boss as he arrived for a business meeting. Andy Marshall asked: "Why sir do you insult your once valued employees?"
Conrad Black replied: "We're not. We're amputating gangrenous limbs. If they have the grace of conversion and want to function as employees instead of staging a coup d'etat in the newsroom, they'll be welcome."
The strike began last November over the Hollinger group's refusal to negotiate an agreement. Andy Marshall said: "Your company has refused a clause that would commit it to treat us equitably and fairly", to which Conrad Black replied: "Andy, it's lies, your nose is growing".
Regarding circulation figures showing that the Herald has lost 25 per cent of sales through the union boycott, Conrad Black said: "It's a bought survey made up by a bunch of crooked union leaders who couldn't add a column of figures if their lives depended on it."
The strike could be strengthened in April when the Herald's printers, who have been prevented by law from taking action, join the stoppage.
An indication of the effect of the action came in an editorial in the Castlegar Sun, a strike-hit Calgary group title whose editor John Morran wrote in February: "Being left to work behind a picket line gives you a small sense of what it's like to be a leper.
"Nobody will touch us. Couriers won't deliver or pick-up, cabs won't come near the place, advertisers shy away, strangers fling newspapers on your doorstep and readers cancel subscriptions.
"Perhaps the saddest sight is the vending machine downstairs. It's down to it's last Snickers bar because even the candyman won't come near us.
"All this can be deflating at times, but you learn to shrug it off."
The Calgary journalists staged a street theatre event in February. Feature writer Susan Scott dressed as the Queen to announce that she would never give Conrad Black a peerage.
Last year the British government wanted to honour the media baron, who owns the Daily Telegraph group, but the peerage was blocked by Canadian Premier Jean Chretien. Black has launched legal action against the Canadian government over the ban.
Susan Scott visited Britain in March and told a meeting of the NUJ Central London Branch: "We have been on strike for four months now and we will not give in."
By Jens Kerte
The Danish Newspaper Politiken: -
http://www.pol.dk
The Net version Saturday Mars 18th 2000
Danish ministers and top civil servants must have a prohibition against participating in secret masonic-like meeting, the Party List of Unity means. The Party List of Unity has proposed a bill of decision in the Danish Parlament. (quote) "In such secret meetings – as the meting of the Bilderberg Group – the power brokers coordinate their views and cover up for each other", Frank Aaen from the Party List Of Unity means, and says : "when it takes place in deepest secrecy it is a scandal that ministers at high level has participated without any democratic insight".(unquote)
More members of the EURO-Parlament and Folketinget (The Danish Parlament) insist on that the participation of Danish ministers and European Commissioners in high political discussions in the yearly, closed conferences of the private, so-called Bilderberg Group being brought to light.
For the last few years both the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of (the Party) Liberal Left Uffe Ellemann-Jensen and the former EU-Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard (the Socialdemocratic Party) have participated in these two-days conferences, where the participants are instructed confidentiality.
Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (the Socialdemocratic Party) gives an answer to one of the written questions on this matter, …that there have never been any decision of the government about Bilderberg.
On this background among other things the Prime Minister says that he does not see any (quote) "basis to criticise, if Danish ministers have participated in the so-called Bilderberg Meetings." (unquote)
Uffe Ellemann-Jensen has since 1984 been present at the confidential discussions of Bilderberg eight times the information of Politiken shows, while Ritt Bjerregaard participated as newly fledged EU-Commissioner Of Environment in 1995. All in all a dozen of Danish ministers have participated since the first meeting in 1954.
Neither Uffe Ellemann-Jensen nor Ritt Bjerregaard briefed the Tribunal Of Foreign Affairs or their Parlamentary Chiefs about their participation.
Their comments to Politiken is the following: (quote) "There was no need caused by the simple reason that there was no talk of that Denmark in any way was getting bound of the unformal debate", (unquote) says Uffe Ellemann-Jensen.
"I have not briefed anybody about my participation, because Bilderberg is a Think Tank that cannot make any decisions at all. There is no basis of being concerned about that people meet and talk to each other" (unquote), says Ritt Bjerregaard.
Seven of the present 20 EU-Commissioners have during the last few years been connected to Bilderberg, and in the EURO-Parlament The Greens have been working for, that these relations now is broad to the public knowledge.
The commisioners in question continuing deny to tell, what they have been discussing in the Bilderberg meetings.
By Jens Kerte
The Bilderberg Group is its name. Discretion, confidence and secrecy are the code words. But now the secretiveness in the closed society of international power brokers is bursting. For nearly fifty years an elite of politicians, bankers and magnats broad order into the matters of the world on private, yearly meetings to let nearly nothing slip out to the outside world from this closed club of discussion. No press meetings, no public statements, and absolutely no admittage allowed to other than members of the Bilderberg Steering Committee, and their hand-picked guests.
However questions from the critics in the European Parlament have lately forced the members of the European Commission to admit their hidden engagement in the Bilderberg Group, and in this country (Denmark) the Party List Of Unity in Folketinget (the Danish Parlament) has asked questions to the Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (Socialdemocratic Party) about the until now unknown participation of former ministers in the confidential discussions of the Bilderberg.
When we other put the matters of the world on the agenda in the hairdresser's saloon it is informal rubbish without consequences. Just like this does power elite of the Bilderberg look at its two yearly meetings. One for the inner-circle of about thirty members of the Steering Commitee, and another where they separately invites a couple of other top figures from the established, international power circles. All in all about one hundred globale heavyweights participate in the yearly symposium behind closed doors to exchange topical views of war and peace, money and politics, environment, and everything connected. Just surrounded by security staff, nothing is allowed to get out.
Bilderberg critics are of the opinion that it at best is a disdain and in the worst-cast a circumvention of the democracy that a private organized circle of leading parlamentarians, ministers, EU-commisioners, US-senators, bank presidents, magnats a.s.o. in secrecy almost set the agenda for the future, and for the international community coping up the established governments and world organisation. They do take the final decision but influenced by a force no one outside the closed circle knows the extent of.
Since 1954 the Bilderberg members have shaken hands on a promise that it does not concern the public what they exactly have been talking about, and who said what in the two-three days long meeting some place in North America or Europe. The minutes of the group exclude for the same reason the names of the discussion participants, and describe them only by their nationality. You have to be able to speake your mind without being taken at their word or held responsible from the outside world for your views and attitudes expressed under the auspices of Bilderberg. However the names of the various first speakers in the discussions, and of the chairmans are mentioned in the internal papers.
Following an "highly confidential" minutes of the first meeting of this exclusive circle of power at Hotel Bilderberg near Arnhem in Holland, it was established and decided to: "Until now there has been inadequate attention to the long term planning of an international agenda, which goes father than the day to day crises. When time is ripe our idea of the world matters must be revealed for the whole world". The quotation comes from Robert Eringer's book "The Global Manipulators - The bilderberg Group/The trilateral Commission", 1980, that like other veldocumented books on the issue maintains that the group from the beginning in 1954 among other things just has had a united Europe on the agenda.
The first chairman of Bilderberg, the Dutch Prince Bernhard noticed at this time following his authorised biography from 1962: "If all us reach an agreement it will without doubt result in, not an Utopia, but a extremely strong and sound Europe".
Today diffused conspiracy fanatics and - theorists have taken care of hundreds of pages and links with anti-propaganda, but also with factual information about the Bilderberg Meetings on the Internet.
When 111 heavy boys included seven women met at the Bilderberg discussions in Portugal last year the ten points of the agenda dealt with Kosovo, the political situation in USA, the new genetics, restructuring of the international world of finances, the social and the political consequences of the latest economic development, the future of NATO, the information technology and the economic policy, the Foreign Policy of Russia, the validity of the European pink governments, and topical events.
For the first time ever the secret internal minutes of the discussions on the Bilderberg Meeting has leaked to the public. So now all interested can read all the 64 quotations from meeting in 1999 on the Internet among others on http://www.schnews.org.uk .
From the discussion about the NATO war in Kosovo it is reported in the introduction: " A Dane (read: the editor-in-chief of Politiken Toeger Seidenfaden, as the only Danish Bilderberg participant this year, according to the Editor) emphasized that the operation had been a gigantic success seen from the criteria of the Alliance, and that it also was subject of a broad understanding in the eyes of the public. It was an perverted objection that not enough of its own soldiers were killed. A British politician also meant that it was worth to celebrate the victory. It was in perfectly good order to go for figures like Sadam Hussein and Milosovic to deter somebody else. Kosovo involved considerations of both national and humanitarian interests. And he underlined that one of the clear objectives should be to get rid of Milosovic".
The chairman, the former American Minister Of Foreign Affairs Henry Kissinger, said about the situation on Balkan that "NATO is in danger of replacing the empires of Ottoman and the Habsburgers in the row of permanent protectors".
Among the first speakers and the chairmen of the discussions last year were besides Henry Kissinger, US UN-Ambassador, Richards C. Holbrooke, President of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, President of the International Monetary Foundation, Stanley Fisher, the American Minister Of Energy, Bill Richardson, the British members of the House Of Commons Kenneth Clarke and Prime Minister Tony Blair's close staff member Peter Mandelsohn, the American Senators Evan Bayh, Christopher J. Dodd and Chuck Hagel, the former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, and others and the Danish leader of the American pharmaceutical company SmidthKline Beecham, Jan Leschly, as a guest from USA. The only representative of Denmark on the Bilderberg Meeting 1999 was Toeger Seidenfaden. He is a member of the inner circle of the group, the Steering Committee.
Several of the passages on the war of NATO in Kosovo in the minutes marked "must not be quoted" have been interpreted by the critics of the group as the accept of clique of power of the intervention of Russia in Tjetjenia. Several Jugoslavian newspapers as Politika and Vojska maintain directly, but undocumented that the engagement of NATO on Balkan originally was decided in the Bilderberg circle.
Other names from the top than the mentioned already on the confidential list of participants from the meeting on Hotel Park Penha Longa in Sintra last year in alphabetical order by country: the Viceminister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Yannos Kranidiotis, Queen Beatrix and Minister of Defence Frank H. G. Grave, Holland, Prime Minister David Oddson, Island, President Jorge Sampaio, Minister Of Education Eduado C. Marcal, Minister Of Traffic Joao Cardona G. Cravinho and member of the Parlament Joaquim Freitas do Amaral, Portugal, President of the Senat, Esperanza Aguirre y Gil de Biedma and member of the Parlament Pedro Solbes Mira, Spain, Minister Of Industry Björn Rosengren, Sweden, President Bill Clinton's personal advicer, Lawyer Vernon E. Jordan and the Bank Mogul David Rockefeller, USA, former Kanzler Franz Vranitzky, Austria, and a number of 'international' participants, Otmar Issing and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa from the European Central Bank and the EU-Commisioners Erkki Liikanen and Maio Monti. Among the twenty new members of the EU-Commission from last year seven of the commissioners have participated in one or more Bilderberg Meetings. A few as members of the Steering Committee. Besides the two mentioned above it is Chairman Romani Prodi, Fritz Bolkestein, Pedro Solbes Mira, Günter Verheugen and Antonio Vitorino. The former Danish EU-Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard (Socialdemocratic Party), has also been present on the Bilderberg Meeting. It was in 1995. Former EU-Commissioner and former Minister Of Foreign Affaires Henning Christophersen has been present as well. Especially the members of the Greens in the European Parlament have expressed discontent with the connections to Bilderberg of the Commissioners, and the Irish representative of the group of the Greens Patricia Mckenna state to Politiken:
"It is unacceptable in this time of openness in the Commission that the commissioners participate in these Bilderberg Meetings, where it is not just the security of the participants, but also secret discussions that are protected by a fully apparatus of state security. These discussions are perfectly clear of essential political importance, and still none of the participating Commissioners will tell anything about, what has been said, or about what has been agreed upon on meetings".
In return the commissioners have now been forced to inform about their relation to Bilderberg, if they did not voluntarily give this information, when they were appointed.
On the background of the topical exposure of the Bilderberg in EU, and in focus of Politiken on the phenomenon the Danish member of the Folketinget (the Danish Parlament) Frank Aaen, the Party List Of Unity, has just in writing asked Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen questions. Frank Aaen demands disclosure of the Danish ministers who have been participated in the Bilderberg Meetings since 1954. He also wants to know, if the Prime Minister finds, that "it is reassuring that ministers participate in a private organisation of a type like the Bilderberg Meetings?". Furthermore he asks, if the Tribunal Of Foreign Affaires and Folketinget have been informed about the participation of Danish ministers in Bilderberg.
The reason of the quetions from the Party List Of Unity goes: "Since 1954 a long range of prominent people of press, managing businessmen and politicians have met at the so-called Bilderberg Meetings, the contents and the sequence of which have been held secret to the public".
Professor on Political Science, Ove Kaj Pedersen, University of Copenhagen, has researched in "networks", and it his opinion that a group like Bilderberg of which he has no special knowledge, is "in priciple an expression of the vitality of the democracy".
"It is certainly positive, that you are able to gather so many international figures of the top from different places in the society for discussing of the issues of the time. But the secretiveness is of course open to criticism, event though it in itself does not give the participants of the meetings power. Because they cannot do anything, and get round the democratic organs, when they come home", says Ove Kaj Pedersen.
Both Bill Cliton and Tony Blair have participated on the Bilderberg Meetings earlier, and Henry Kissinger has been present nearly all the times since the exclusive group was formed in 1954 on the initiative of the "grey eminence of the after war policy of Europe", the English exile Pole Joesph H. Retinger, and the Dutch Prince Bernhard as the unofficial Think Tank for the power bokers of NATO-countries. The most important issues of discussion was originally a closer and more USA-friendly European co-operation, and strategies against the expanding international socialism. The first meeting took place as mentioned on Hotel de Bilderberg. Of this the name of the group, you see. After the fall of the Sovjet Union representatives of former communist regimes of Europe have been invited to the closed circle.
In 1956 and 1959 Denmark hosted the yearly Bilderberg Top Meeting. It took place respectively on Hotel Store Kro in Fredensborg, and on Hotel Marienlyst of Helsingør. At the first meeting was the Danish participants Prince Axel ÖK-President Hakon Christensen, the conservative Ole Bjoern Kraft and Terkel M. Terkelsen, Berlingske Tidende (Danish Newspaper) The second meeting included the Danes Prince Henrik, President Johannes Green, the Private Bank, Poul Hartling (the Pary Liberal Left), Jens Otto Krag and Jens Kampmann (both the Socialdemocratic Party) (the Party Liberal Left), Maersk McKinney-Moeller, President Svend O. Sørensen, the Danish Bank.
Other prominent, Danish participant of Bilderberg through the years besides the mentioned above are Minister Of Finance Thorkil Kristensen (Liberal Left) Minister Of Foreign Affairs Per Haekkerup, Minister Of Economy Ivar Noerregaard (Socialdemocratic Party (S)), Minister Of Culture Niels Matthiasen (S), Joergen Schleimann, President Of TV 2, Minister Of Foreign Affairs K. B. Andersen (S), President Of Danmark's National Bank Erik Hoffmeyer, Minister Of Industry Niels Wilhjelm (Conservative Party (K)), the present President of Danmark's National Bank Bodil Nyboe Andersen. With Chairman of the Party Liberal Left, Anders Fog Rasmussen she is invited by member of the Steering Committee Toeger Seidenfaden to the coming Bilderberg Meeting in Switzerland in June as the Danish participants of this year. Originally the meeting had been planned to be held in Austria, but caused by the political situation in the country with following comprehensive international boycot it has been moved. Ther organizers feared too many cancellations.
In 1977 the British newspaper The Times described the Bilderberg Meeting with the words: "...a clique of the richest, the economical and political most powerful and influential figures in the West meeting secretely to plan events that later on just happens by chance". In Financial Times the column writer Lombard noticed: "If the Bilderberg Group is not a conspiration of some kind it acts as a exceptional good imitation of one".
Several international, leading people of the press have through the years been taken in to dinner and participated in discussions in Bilderberg, but cause by their silence and the conspicuous secretiveness in general about the meetings, it is limited what has been written earlier in the Danish, and the international media about this special forum of power.
This was the principal content of a couple of notes in Helsingør Dagblad (Danish newspaper) May 1969, when the world elite of Bilderberg held a conference just around the corner on Hotel Marienlyst:
"On Hotel "Marienlyst" the Bilderberg circle held a two-days meeting, which ended Sunday, however nothing of the negociations has been published. This for reasons of the free exchange of opinions ".
from Politiken http://www.pol.dk 18Mar00 and 19Mar00
from Politiken http://www.pol.dk 18Mar00 and 19Mar00
By Jens Kerte
The Bilderberg Group was established on initiative of the "grey eminences of the After War policy in Europe", and the founder of the European Movement, the British exile Pole dr. Joseph H. Retinger, with help from his friend Prince Bernhard of Holland, who became the first Chairman. The group and the yearly meetings has its name from Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek in Holland, where the first of until now 47 confidential conferences took place May 29th - 31st 1954. From USA was the American Secret Service the then President of CIA, General Walter Bedell Smith and the Rockefeller family present from the beginning.
The conservative, Danish Minister Of Foreign Affairs from 1950 to 1953, Ole Bjoern Kraft, was in the inner circle of half a score of figures already at the later first preparatory meeting of the Bilderberg Group in a private flat in Paris September 25th 1952.
The philosophy behind the transatlantic grouping centered round the NATO- countries was in the Cold War to create a discrete forum where a picked circle of the leaders of the West within policy, economy, industry and the press peacefully and without knowledge of the public could discuss strategies to protect the values of the democratic world against the rising threat from Sovjet Union and Communism. The idea was also to strengthen Europe internally, and to tie close connections to USA. After the fall of the socialism east of the former Iron Curtain, the agenda on the still confidential meetings another with more general issues within e.g. global policy, economy, defence and environment besides the topical events to discussion.
The Inner Circle in Bilderberg consists of a self-supplementary Steering Committee of about 30 figures from USA and Europe, which invite about 90 international power brokers more included several repeats to the yearly, closed conference. In the latest years also with participation of top politicians from the former East Block.
Prince Bernhard was the Chairman of Bilderberg for 22 years until 1976, when he resigned in connection with his involvement in the corruption affair of the aeroplane factory Lockheed. For the same reason the Bilderberg Meeting was cancelled that year. The later chairmen is the former Prime Minister Lord Home, former Kanzler Walther Scheel, Lord Roll, President of the banking firm Warburg Group, the former General Secretary Of NATO, Lord Carrington and Etienne Davignon, former Vice Chairman of the European Commission.
The financing of of the yearly Bilderberg Meetings is in charge of private fund-raising of the members of the Steerings Committee in the host country, while the participants take care of the transportation forth and back. The security of the participants is taken care of by the police force of country in question. The secretariat in Holland consists of an office and a couple secretaries. Who pays for this and the printing of the yearly, internal report from the conference, is confidential. As are the names of the contributors to the bill of hotel and consumption.
According to the expert on private, international power groupings, professor on Political Science Stephen Gill, York University, Toronto, the first Bilderberg Meeting was financed by CIA. He refers to official American documents in his textbook "American Hegemony And the The Trilateral Commission.
from Politiken http://www.pol.dk 18Mar00 and 19Mar00
Translated by Joern E. Vig, Denmark http://www.united-bluff.com/indexd.htm
from: Patricia McKenna MEP (Green Party)
to: Commisioner Solbes Mira, Strasbourg, 16th May 2000
Question Tabled: 30.3.2000
Can the Commission confirm that Mr Solbes Mira is now an Executive Committee member of the Trilateral Commission (international), and explain why the declaration of the Commisisoner has apparently not been adjusted to reflect this change. Does the Commission view it as appropriate for Commissioners to be members of such highly conservative political think-tanks, especially given the aspirations for openness and independence of the new Commission, following the resignation of the Santer Commission. Can the Commision state whether any other Commisisoners, such as Mr Patten, are members, and if so explain why some of these memberships are not declared.
Can the Commisison confirm that Mr Solbes Mira is due to attend the Bilderberg meeting in Switzerland on June 1st-4th, and will the Commission indicate what other Commisisoners are due to attend. Will the Commission now advise Commissioners to refuse invitations to such secret and highly politically conservative meetings, given the much touted new era of Commission independence and openness. In that same context, can the Commission explain how expenses and leave are handled for Commissioners attending such meetings, and clarify how and by whom the security for attendees for such meetings are paid for.
Grattan Healy, Adviser on Energy & Research,
Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament,
6C69 Paul Henri Spaak building,
Rue Wiertz Straat 60,
B-1047 Bruxelles,
BELGIQUE.
tel: +32 2 2842191
fax: +32 2 2844714;
WIC 390,
European Parliament,
67000 Strasbourg, France.
tel: +33 3 88173746
fax: +33 3 88176930
email: ghealy@europarl.eu.int
Sunday December 26, 1999
He talked about doing voluntary work in Africa to help the downtrodden and the poor. But Peter Mandelson still managed to spend some two of his 10 months on the backbenches globetrotting and staying in luxury hotels - all at somebody else's expense.
An Observer analysis of Mandelson's foreign junkets this year reveals he benefited from £20,000 worth of free travel. He spent so much time in aircraft that in total he circumnavigated the globe twice in business class.
Mandelson, who was forced to resign in disgrace last December after failing to declare having borrowed £373,000 from Geoffrey Robinson to buy his house in Notting Hill, claimed to have turned down lucrative jobs in the City to do voluntary work among the downtrodden in Africa - and said he had a 'passion for compassion'. He travelled to South Africa and met ANC representatives in the run-up to the presidential election and visited a Voluntary Service Overseas project.
There is no suggestion Mandelson has done anything wrong - he has declared all the trips in the Register of Members' Interests - but the extent of his travelling shows that he has not left his jet-setting lifestyle behind.
Only last week he was telling the press that after his resignation he had tried to 'normalise' his life and make sure he 'never got back into that world of fast publicity and fast celebrity'.
But a collection of wealthy individuals, institutions and multinationals ensured the MP for Hartlepool maintained an international jet-set lifestyle that would have been the envy of most Ministers, let alone other backbench MPs.
The Observer passed Mandelson's itinerary of 13 trips to a respected firm of London travel agents, which estimated it would be difficult to arrange such a five-star package for less than £20,000. Some of the bankrollers of the MP's foreign trips are highly controversial.
In August, he spent eight days in the luxurious Aspen Meadows resort in Colorado, setting for the annual conference of the secretive Aspen Institute, which paid for the MP's travel and accommodation. It says it is a forum to bring together the world's most important business people and politicians to discuss global issues.
The institute is seen by some as a collection of central bankers and politicians who believe the free market and globalisation can solve the world's problems. In 1990, at the institute's fortieth anniversary celebration, former US President George Bush received its Distinguished Leadership Award and Margaret Thatcher received the Statesman Award.
A spokesman for the institute said Mandelson's accommodation alone would have been worth £4,000 and a return business class flight could have cost up to £4,000. The same generosity was shown to all participants.
Aspen is also the home of Linda Wachner, the lingerie millionairess who provided undeclared free flights to Mandelson when he was first a Minister. Mandelson inisted she was a friend and there was therefore no obligation to declare these trips.
The grandness of Aspen Meadows pales beside the sumptuous Caesar Park resort in Sintra, Portugal, where Mandelson spent several days as a guest of the Bilderberg Group, an international talking shop for the world's business and political elite. Participants are hand-picked; the press is strictly at bay.
In April, Mandelson had enjoyed more opulent surroundings as a guest of Lord Rothschild, one of Britain's richest men. He spent three days at Rothschild's villa in Corfu. Another friend, the PR millionaire Mathew Freud lent Mandelson an Apple Mac computer. Freud is boyfriend of Elisabeth Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch's daughter.
Rothschild told The Observer: 'Peter came over for about three days and stayed at the villa. He is a friend of mine and was interested in the general situation in Albania.'
Also in April, Mandelson spent three days in Washington, where he stayed in the £150-a-night Four Seasons Hotel. His bills were picked up by the Hudson Institute, a right-wing think-tank whose key figure is Irwin Stelzer, adviser to Rupert Murdoch. Stelzer is rumoured to be a regular visitor to 10 Downing Street.
After Mandelson resigned as Trade Secretary, BP picked up his bill for travel and accommodation in Paris for a meeting of the political and business elite of Britain and France. The MP's longest trip was an eight-day stay in South Africa in February. His flight was paid for by the engineering union, the AEEU.
He earned up to £2,000 a time for speaking engagements. His paymasters included City bankers Warburg Dillon Read, accountancy firm Ernst & Young and advertising agency TBWA. Mandelson has declared all 13 of his 1999 foreign trips in the Register of Members' Interests, resulting in one of the longest ever lists of 'overseas visits' recorded by an MP.
Could be disinformation???? [Bern has been mentioned as the venue - unconfirmed]
According to the Vienna Newspaper "KURIER" http://www2.kurier.at/, Friday, 25th February 2000 due to the participation of the FPÖ (Jörg Haider) Party in the government, the "Bilderberg" meeting will not be in Austria on 1st to 4th June but in Switzerland. The date will probably be the same since it will be difficult for such a lot of 'important' people to change their timetable.
The newspaper continues and explains that Bill Clinton will participate as well as the NATO Secretary General George Robertson. Minister for Northern Ireland and Blair clone Peter Mandelson, EU-Commissioner Pedro Solbes. The CEO of Monsanto, Xerox and Goldman-Sachs and Fiat-Boss Agnelli. The editors of Washington Post and Economist will attend but not (as usual) mention the fact in their respective publications.
Etienne Davignon, the new Bilderberg Chairman will preside.
In the beginning of 1985 Davignon joined Société Générale de Belgique, Belgium's leading holding company of which he became Chairman on the 11th April 1989. Mr. Davignon is a member of the Board of the Générale de Banque, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, BASF, ICL, Solvay, Kissinger Associates and several S.G.B. group companies. He became Chairman of the Association for the Monetary Union of Europe on May 30, 1991. As member of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), he chairs the working group on Trade and Investment. He is a Chairman of the Paul-Henri Spaak Foundation and the Royal Institute for International Relations. Pictures of James Wolfensohn (Worldbank), Carld Bildt (UN - Special envoy to former Yugoslavia ???), Jean-Claude Trichet (Vicepresident of European Central Bank) and Norbert Zimmermann (Berndorf Company - Austria). It later declares that last year in Portugal there was ex-Chancellor Franz Vranitzky and Director General of Bank Austria: Gerhard Randa. It further states that the "Bilderbergers" meet once a year in a hotel. The talks are not made public, which has given the Bilderbergers the reputation of being a secret society. In reality real powerful people speak three days on the future of the world in all frankness but why not for the press? The meeting can be compared to the meeting in Davos only much more secretive and with the highest players in global capitalism involved. The greater discretion allows the participating politicians and economic captains to even speak more frankly with each others on subjects which, if heard by the general public could be explosive!
The newspaper is lamenting that due to the new Austrian government also other meetings especially the meeting of the European Investmentbank (the EU house-bank) most probably will not be in Vienna.