Bilderberg at 60: inside the world's most secretive conference Topics on the agenda for the three-day summit first held on 29 May 1954 will include: does privacy exist?

Bilderberg at 60: inside the world's most secretive conference

Topics on the agenda for the three-day summit first held on 29 May 1954 will include: does privacy exist?

Charlie Skelton

theguardian.com, Thursday 29 May 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/29/bilderberg-60-inside-worlds-most-secretive-conference?CMP=fb_gu

It's been a week of celebrations for Henry Kissinger. On Tuesday he turned 91, on Wednesday he broke his personal best in the 400m hurdles, and on Thursday in Copenhagen, he'll be clinking champagne flutes with the secretary general of Nato and the queen of Spain, as they celebrate 60 glorious years of Bilderberg. I just hope George Osborne remembered to pack a party hat.

Thursday is the opening day of the influential three-day summit and it's also the 60th anniversary of the Bilderberg Group's first meeting, which took place in Holland on 29 May 1954. So this year's event is a red-letter occasion, and the official participant list shows that the 2014 conference is a peculiarly high-powered affair.

The chancellor, at his seventh Bilderberg, is spending the next three days deep in conference with the heads of MI6, Nato, the International Monetary Fund, HSBC, Shell, BP and Goldman Sachs International, along with dozens of other chief executives, billionaires and high-ranking politicians from around Europe. This year also includes a visit from the supreme allied commander Europe, and a return of royalty – Queen Sofia of Spain and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, the daughter of the Bilderberg founder Prince Bernhard.

Back in the 1950s, when Bernhard sent out the invitations, it was to discuss "a number of problems facing western civilization". These days, the Bilderberg Group prefers to call them "megatrends". The megatrends on this year's agenda include: "What next for Europe?", "Ukraine", "Intelligence sharing" and "Does privacy exist?"

That's an exquisite irony: the world's most secretive conference discussing whether privacy exists. Certainly for some it does. It's not just birthday bunting that's gone up in Copenhagen: there's also a double ring of three-metre (10ft) high security fencing. The hotel is teeming with security: lithe gentlemen in loose slacks and dark glasses, trying not to kill the birthday vibe. Or anyone else.

Already, two reporters have been arrested trying to interview the organisers of the conference in the Marriott hotel bar. It's easy enough to keep your privacy intact when you're employing so many people to guard it.

There's something distinctly chilling about the existence of privacy being debated, in extreme privacy, by people such as the executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, and the board member of Facebook Peter Thiel: exactly the people who know how radically transparent the general public has become.

And to have them discussing it with the head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, and Keith Alexander, the recently replaced head of the National Security Agency. And with people such as the head of AXA, the insurance and investment conglomerate – Henri de Castries. Perhaps no one is more interested in data collection and public surveillance than the insurance giants. For them, privacy is the enemy. Public transparency is a goldmine.

Back in 2010, Osborne proudly launched "the most radical transparency agenda the country has ever seen". However, this transparency agenda doesn't seem to extend to Osborne himself making a public statement about what he has discussed at this meeting. And with whom.

We know, from the agenda and list, that Osborne will be there with the foreign affairs ministers from Spain and Sweden, and the deputy secretary general of the French presidency. And from closer to home, the international development secretary, Justine Greening, and fellow Bilderberg veteran and shadow chancellor, Ed Balls.

We know that he's scheduled to discuss the situation in Ukraine with extremely interested parties, such as the chief executive of the European arms giant Airbus, Thomas Enders. Not to mention the chief executive and chairman of "the defence & security company" Saab: Håkan Buskhe and Marcus Wallenberg. And billionaire investors including Henry Kravis of KKR, who is "always looking to sharpen" what he calls "the KKR edge". Helping Kravis sharpen his edge is General David Petraeus, former director of the CIA, now head of the KKR Global Institute – a massive investment operation.

The Bilderberg Group says the conference has no desired outcome. But for private equity giants, and the heads of banks, arms manufacturers and oil companies, there's always a desired outcome. Try telling the shareholders of Shell that there's "no desired outcome" of their chairman and chief executive spending three days in conference with politicians and policy makers.

Try telling that to the lobbyists who have been working so hard to push the Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal that is being negotiated. Bilderberg is packed to the gills with senior members of powerful lobby groups. Will members of BritishAmerican Business's international advisory board, such as Douglas Flint and Peter Sutherland, express BAB's fervent support of TTIP when discussing "Is the economic recovery sustainable?" Or will they leave their lobbying hats at the door?

MP Michael Meacher describes Bilderberg as "the cabal of the rich and powerful" who are working "to consolidate and extend the grip of the markets". And they're doing so "beyond the reach of the media or the public". That said, every year, the press probes a little further behind the security fencing. Every year the questions for the politicians who attend, but remain silent, get harder.

They can try to laugh it off as a "talking shop" or a glorified knees-up, but these people haven't come to Bilderberg to drink fizzy wine and pull party poppers. It's possible that Reid Hoffman, the head of LinkedIn, has turned up for the birthday cake. But I doubt it. This is big business. And big politics. And big lobbying.

Bilderberg is big money, and they know how to spend it. From my spot outside, I've just seen three vans full of fish delicacies trundle into the hotel service entrance. I always thought there was something fishy about Bilderberg. Turns out that for tonight at least, it's the rollmops