For Bildeberg Group one is meant annual meeting in which important exponents of the Western political, academic and economic world participate. The meeting is held in a different city every year. It has this name because the first meeting was held on May 29, 1954 atBilderberg hotel in Oosterbeek, near Arnhem, the Netherlands. The meeting is organized by a special person steering Committee and does not include the presence of the public or journalists. The organizers only release a short press release with the topics and the list of participants; everything else is kept secret. The secrecy of the meetings caused numerous to flourish conspiracy theoriesleaving us to imagine that the participants constitute a sort of world elite intent on subjugating the human race. These are, logically, unfounded ideas, but it is true that the meetings serve to lobby in favor of certain political and economic ideas.
What is the Bildeberg Group
The so-called Bildeberg Group is a conference that brings together every year around 130 peopleselected by invitation. The participants are leading figures from the world of politics, industry, culture, coming from Europe and North America. To give an example, the 2024 meeting, held in Madrid, was attended by NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, former American general and former CIA director David Petraeus, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Among the Italians were two former prime ministers, Paolo Gentiloni (European commissioner at the time of the work) and Mario Monti, as well as the journalist Lilli Gruber and other exponents of journalism and the business world.
The guest list changes every year (although some guests are present every year) and therefore there are no “members” of the Bildeberg Group. The very definition of “group” is inappropriate and it would be more correct to speak of Bildeberg conferences. The guests, for their part, participate in a personal capacity and not as representatives of states or organizations of which they are part.
The Group is controlled by a steering Committeewhich decides the people to invite and the topics to discuss. The members of the committee are largely industrialists and bankers. Today its members include, among others, José Manuel Barroso, former president of the European Commission and current president of Goldman Sachs, Michael O’ Leary, CEO of Ryanair, Ana Botín, president of the Spanish banking group Santander. The only Italian member is Marco Alveràformer president of Snam and founder of Zhero, a company involved in renewable energy. He was also a member of the committee in the past John Elkannpresident of Stellantis, the multinational that controls Fiat and numerous other car manufacturers.
How Bildeberg meetings take place
Each Bildeberg meeting lasts three days and takes place in a luxury hotel in Europe or North America. The list of participants and the topics under discussion are made public on the conference website, but the meetings are secret. Vige the Chatham House rule (named after the American Institute that introduced it): participants can use the information they learn at meetings, but cannot reveal its source. The organizers argue that confidentiality is necessary to allow everyone to express themselves freely and encourage dialogue.
The topics under discussion are current affairs. In 2024, according to the information disclosed by the organizers, there was talk of artificial intelligence, Ukraine, various economic issues, climate and biology. The disclosed list, however, is very generic and does not allow us to understand what the topics of discussion actually were.
The history of the Bildeberg Group
The Group was born in 1954 upon proposal of David Rockefellermember of one of the most important American industrial families (his grandfather, John Rockefeller, was the founder of Standard Oil, the largest oil industry of the time) and the prince of the Netherlands Bernhard van Lippe-Biesterfeld.
The promoters wanted to bring together politicians and businessmen to strengthen cooperation between Europe and North America and counter the Soviet Union. The meeting was held in the Netherlands, not far from the city of Arnhem, atHotel de Bildebergwhich gave its name to the “group”.
Conspiracy theories about the Bildeberg Group
Due to the caliber of the people present and the secrecy of the meetings, the Bildeberg conferences are at the center of numerous conspiracy theories. Participants are sometimes considered “the masters of the world”who decide the fate of mankind, plotting to establish the new world order. In cases of “extreme conspiracy theory”, it is even hypothesized that Bildeberg members are promoters of mass immigration to replace the European population or that they have extraterrestrial origins.
Conspiracy theories they are unfounded: it makes no sense to think that institutions that operate in the open, such as parliaments and governments, have no real political weight and are limited to carrying out directives that come from secret groups (which, clearly, does not mean that plots cannot exist obscurity and lobbying). However, it is likely that the Bildeberg meetings will do some of this lobbying in support of certain political and economic ideasespecially in favor of neoliberal ideas.
