MethodologyContact usLogin
Top executives at aluminium producers Alcoa and Norsk Hydro have been named as attendees at the secretive Bilderberg Group meeting in Chantilly, Virginia, which takes place from May 31 to June 3.
The attendee list this year includes Klaus Kleinfeld, chairman and ceo of Alcoa, and Svein Richard Brandtzaeg, president and ceo of Norsk Hydro.
The Bilderberg Group was established over 50 years ago to enable leading politicians, government officials and business people from America and Europe to hold discussions in a private forum.
“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,” according to its website.
Despite over a hundred of the world’s leading members of industry, banking and government meeting once a year, no record of what is discussed at the confab has ever been officially released to the public and all the attendees are sworn to secrecy.
Past attendees include Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Angela Merkel, David Cameron, George HW Bush, Prince Charles, Ben Bernanke, Hillary Clinton and Timothy Geithner.
This year, however, the meeting in Chantilly has become a big focal point for the alternative media and demonstrators, which may have prompted the group to become more transparent and release the names of invited guests.
Other luminaries on this year’s list include executives from Barclays, Goldman Sachs, BP, Shell, Airbus, Fiat, Google, Dow Chemical, Siemens, the Financial Times and the Economist.
It also includes Henry Kissinger, British MPs Kenneth Clarke and Nick Boles, Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, US senator John Kerry, while EU president Herman van Rompuy is also understood to be in attendance this year.
The secrecy governing the group’s meetings of the rich and powerful has encouraged suggestions that it has played a major role in shaping the direction of the world since it was created in 1954.
“The conference will deal mainly with political, economic and societal issues like transatlantic relations, the evolution of the political landscape in Europe and the USA, austerity and growth in developed economies, cyber security, energy challenges, the future of democracy, Russia, China and the Middle East,” according to the Bilderberg website.
Speculation suggests that those attending are likely to discuss efforts to save the euro, a possible attack on Iran and the UN’s Agenda 21 environmental plan.
The full attendee list can be viewed here.