The annual Bilderberg Meeting begins in Stockholm on Thursday.
It is the 71st meeting of Bilderberg, the secretive group, which comprises elites from the spheres of politics, tech, business, finance, and the military, and will run from June 12 to 15 in the Swedish capital.
The event takes its name from the location of its first meeting in 1954, the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, the Netherlands.
Unlike similar events, such as the World Economic Forum’s annual get-together in Davos, Switzerland, no media are invited to cover what goes on during the meeting, and attendees themselves tend to remain tight-lipped about what has been said behind the conference’s closed doors.
This culture of secrecy has given rise to a number of conspiracy theories about the group, including that Bilderberg attendees were behind the creation of the European Union and the invasion of Iraq.
Among the attendees at this year’s event are NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte, American billionaire businessman Peter Thiel, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, and Christopher Donahue, commander of the U.S. Army Europe and Africa, according to a list provided by the organizers.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is also due to give a speech to the meeting “on Sweden’s and the EU’s competitiveness and Sweden’s support for Ukraine,” his spokesperson said.
According to the Bilderberg website, around two-thirds of the participants are European, with the rest hailing from North America.
Around a third are involved in politics and government, with the remainder having a background in other fields.
Among the topics scheduled for discussion are Trans-Atlantic relations, the Russia–Ukraine war, the U.S. economy, artificial intelligence, depopulation and migration, the “Authoritarian Axis,” and the geopolitics of energy and critical minerals.
There is limited other information about the event as the meetings are held under the “Chatham House Rule,“ named after the international affairs think tank in London, which states: ”When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.”
By Guy Birchall
