Inside Story - How powerful is the Bilderberg group?

it's one of the most secretive and powerful organizations you've probably never heard of he Bilderberg Group is hosting some of the world's top business and political leaders in Dresden for how influential is it and what does it say about the relationship between big business and politicians listed inside story hello and welcome to the program I'm fully battable it's a forum held every year where the rich and the powerful can meet and exchange ideas in complete secrecy almost 130 politicians bankers and industrialists are attending this year's Bilderberg Group conference in the German city of Dresden this year's attendees include the former head of the CIA and the IMF chief but just like every year no reporters are allowed in there are no minutes of meetings no votes and no policy statements and participants are bound by what's known as a Chatham House rule which allows people to make use of the information they've received but not reveal the identity or affiliation of the person who gave it to them now for years the agenda and lists of attendees of Bilderberg was kept a secret a list of discussion topics is now released but it's extremely vague we do however have the full list of people attending two prime ministers will be there mark Reuter from the Netherlands and Belgium Charles Michel and as we mentioned earlier Christine Lagarde is attending she's the head of the International Monetary Fund two former intelligence chief John Sawers of mi6 and David Petraeus who used to lead the CIA will also be there and the rest of the list is littered with influential businessmen and bankers including the heads of Shell HSBC and alphabet Inc which is the holding company for Google they're also around 10 journalists from major media organisations attending the meeting but they can't report on it well let's bring in our guest now joining us from Dresden on skype is writer and journalist Charlie Skelton who's covering the Bilderberg conference for the Guardian newspaper in London we have the head of global affairs at Oxfam Katie Wright and from Middleburg in Holland also on skype is John Scott Smith who's a professor of diplomatic history at the University of Leiden welcome to you all thank you for being on Inside Story Charlie Anderson if I can start with you there are many people of course who don't know what Bilderberg is so what actually happens when the world's most influential people get together I wish I knew well it's hard to say but what happens is that it's a an intensive three-day summit at which the participants will sit down and be part of an extremely rigorously structured conference and and the some of these participants will be from the world of politics so this year there are two prime ministers for finance ministers any number of other ministers from around Europe there's Christine Lagarde from the art head of the IMF the list goes on of extremely influential policymakers and what they're doing is they're attending a conference which is funded by and run by gigantic business interests so this year for example is Airbus the seventh largest armed company in the world and deutsche bank they're the kind of host companies back when it was in the UK Barclays was hosting it and so it's um it's a it's a corporate lobbying event but it's a lobbying event that's so powerful that the the rather than meeting and in the lobby of Parliament say the parliamentarians come to Bilderberg okay well let me bring in John Scott Smith in Middleburg now so a very vague agenda John's at this meeting no resolutions are proposed no votes are taken no final communique issued what's the point of all this why is this meeting still so important today political and financial elites always gain a lot from informally being able to discuss matters of current day interest this is something that this occurred throughout history so in that sense there's nothing particularly new about it I think there are obvious obviously unique elements of Bilderberg which perhaps we can discuss in the coming few minutes but I don't think there's anything particularly unusual I think the the secrecy surrounding it though it makes it more notorious there's no doubt about that yeah well as you know the conspiracy theories are bound around Bilderberg I mean everyone believes they're actually plotting world domination there that this is a shadow government and as you say the secrecy doesn't exactly help how do these conspiracy theories start actually what led to people believing that there was other things that there were other things going on here besides just informal discussions I think this it's quite straightforward really if you get such a tremendous group of powerful political and economic elites and you've got them in one hotel in also often a location that has been deliberately out of the way of the public eye in the past they used to often choose hotels in yeah rather remote locations buxton in Derbyshire comes to mind which is an unusual one but if you do that plus as you've already mentioned the agenda is somewhat vague plus there's no media allowed in to actually report and even the the journalists who are invited as individuals are not allowed to write they are not paid on what they owe them what they saw so that obviously combined is going to produce some pretty far-out stories about what they're doing what they're achieving okay let me bring in Katie now in London Katie John says that you know business leaders and politicians can gain a lot from a meeting in an informal informal setting do you agree with this do you think this is a good idea to get business leaders and politicians to talk about info major issues without any oversight any any journalistic oversight for instance listen I'm sure they do gain a lot and there's nothing actually intrinsically wrong with people meeting and talking and discussing problems but you know what we've got to ask about a meeting like Bilderberg is who's not there and that's most people affected by the issues that they're talking about and and this isn't about conspiracy theories this isn't about this isn't about secret plots for world domination you know there's a pretty clear dominant elite out there Oxfam put out a report earlier this year for Davos another a meeting that tends to be talked about in a similar vein where we brought to light evidence that's available for everyone to find which is that just 62 people the world have the same wealth as the poorest half of the population 3.5 billion people and when you introduce this segment you talked about the wealthy and the powerful meeting together and increasingly it's that that wealth and power come together they are in fact in many cases just the same thing and they're discussing problems issues global trends that have an effect on billions of other people who never get to look into those decisions and that's actually why we see this kind of inequality that the Oxfam cares about and ultimately the poverty continue okay well I do want to talk about the the selection process about who is there and who's not there and journalists Jon Ronson spoke to one Bilderberg founder the former British Chancellor Denis Healey who said we make a point of getting along young politicians younger politicians who are obviously rising to bring them together with finance seers and industrialists who offer them wise words he says it increases the chance of having a sensible global policy so Charlie about the people who are there they've been of course theories that you know Bilderberg builds future leaders that for instance Margaret Thatcher's Korea launched after she attended the Bilderberg meeting and and so was Bill Clinton he became president after attending the Bilderberg meeting as a governor of AK Arkansas are these theories you know is this true that they they build future leaders or is this just you know coincidence you think well there certainly is a pattern and you know some people would say they're good at talent spotting others would say that the that if I when a young or up-and-coming politician is brought into the fold of Bilderberg then they're kind of joining the general consensus of power and it doesn't exactly do their career any harm there's a perhaps the most interesting thing example of this though is I mean you mentioned that the full list is published well I mean it's definitely not published and I know this from long experience of finding out names that haven't been published on the list and seeing in fact photographing people that I can see going in and who aren't on the list but probably the most extraordinary version is in 2008 where senator Obama and Hilary Clinton both attended secretly and this was confirmed actually by later on the French interview with the French prime minister he confirmed that they were there now this hasn't been publicized at all what you can watch on on YouTube is the entire press corps who was following with Barack Obama around suddenly realizing their candidate their presidential candidate had disappeared and it's an extrordinary piece of footage and I recommend you watching it but what I what I would say is that absolutely there's there's a pattern but you don't again with a lot of these things you don't have to immediately reach for the words conspiracy theory to describe them so when you're describing say the global ambitions of the of the people that build a big you don't you don't have to immediately shout a conspiracy theory you can just simply describe them as extremely powerful fans of globalization they have absolutely got a global ambition of course people companies like HSBC and Royal Dutch Shell and BP these are global companies who are big fans or for example TTIP these are globalists so yes they absolutely do have a global ambition and they have global reach and global power I'm saying all of those things isn't to describe isn't to say it's a conspiracy theory it's simply to describe a powerful set of business interests ok child's in Middleburg you mentioned that they were important gains that could be made out of these informal meetings I just you know for our viewers who are not familiar with the Bilderberg Group just how influential is this club you know they can create examples of you know of how they've changes a change or rather or shifted our global policy various ways of assessing influence of course one way to look at Bilderberg is a wonderful opportunity for informal channels of contact an interesting one from from history is when General de Gaulle was in charge in France in the 1960s and was directly challenging US leadership in the transatlantic region there was a Bilderberg meeting planned I think believe it was in kanne in 1964 and one would expect de Gaulle to have canceled it and dismissed it as yet another example of American power but instead he let it go ahead not only that he also allowed some of his key advisors to attend because he understood that it gave him a wonderful kind of opportunity to test the waters of top American British and other European officials on on major transatlantic issues in other words he understood this value and it's in its influence there are other interesting examples I think over time Bilderberg has shifted from a more kind of politically orientated body starting out in the 50s which of course is a very intense era of building transatlantic institutions NATO etc the early days of European integration and I believe since the end of the Cold War I do agree that it's become much more corporate orientated I think it's entered a kind of era of globalization where economic and financial deals are now merging with or even overseeing the political dimensions right you wonder also if it's as influential as it was in 1954 when there's clearly a big pushback today against big business I mean Bernie Sanders in the US has based his entire campaign against his you know big business and politicians getting together is is the influence as big today as it was back in the 1950s I suppose the easy answer would be to say no but that that would probably be too simple because if you do follow that transition from kind of political institution building to to corporate deal-making I think the the corporate angle is is extremely important up there with Davos and other similar forums and just to give one brief example it's I think it's on record that's Bilderberg in the late 90s was a key forum for what for the formation of what became Airbus and the the original deals were were made to merge the key Italian German and French military military industrial concerns so I think that's that's quite a recent example which shows what can be done okay Katie so how worried then should we be that you know our elected officials are having a summer camp a get-together in Germany with people who clearly have big in big business interests in their minds who are motivated by financial profits how concerned should citizens European citizens in of other countries be about this that for instance you know the finance ministers or the chief of the IMF is sitting down with oil executives and so on yeah I think that I think they should be concerned I think it should be concern for a and a couple of reasons I mean it's not that we're saying that the idea of diplomacy in the fireside chat isn't useful between essentially as as has just been explained you know democratically elected leaders who we would presume to act in the public interest but this is now very much about private interests and those private interests are narrowing all the time actually as the nature of corporate corporations narrows all the time to be completely focused on profit and shareholder interest so so so the reasons we should be worried a twofold firstly a lot of these companies will be lobbying for impacts that have great profitability for themselves but very negative in tax for ordinary people I'm thinking about big pharma industries who want obviously more and more profit for their drugs pricing more and more people out of life-saving medicines I'm thinking about another huge contribution to lobbying and to these kind of meetings the finance industry who've created as we've seen you know a financial sector that creates huge profits for those at the top and Reks financial havoc for the rest of the world okay and then the second sugar just a second the second reason why I think it's sort of structurally something to be concerned about is I'll take you back to this this picture of inequality that Oxfam's facing you know where the 1% owned more than absolutely everyone else put together and and I think what that what that illustrates is just that people's conceptions about what the problems are in the world and what the solutions might be are of course going to be vastly different and what meetings like Bilderberg and Davos and others do is they reinforce the idea that these the experts these are the people that know what's going on they know the truth and they might know how to solve it well that might be true for their truth and their problems but they know absolutely nothing about the lives of ordinary people whether they be in African villages or you know Dean just realizing towns in the UK and and those voices are just not getting heard in policymaking right let's hear from Charlie in Dresden now Charlie the theme of the meeting this year is European unity and I imagine that the upcoming UK referendum on the EU membership is going to be a very hot topic there the Bilderberg chairman Henry de Castries told the Financial Times in January and ICO that a brexit would be a disaster for the EU so just how anxious are they about a possible brexit in Dresden today I think they genuinely extremely anxious because there's a lot at stake for these companies particularly never mind the kind of yura file MP politicians were there the business interests for whom a brexit would be as Omri de Castries who's on the board of HSBC and this a head of accent it would be a disaster absolutely because prop for anything else it would scupper the TTIP deal just like that and whether or not you're a fan of brexit yourself what you can identify is that is that a lot of the big banking and big business interests at Bilderberg have been very vocal about breaks it and about remaining in Europe and have put their money where their mouth is and Goldman Sachs JP Morgan they both funneled money into the remain campaign Charlie just for our viewers how precisely do they persuade governments to meet their interests how do they do it well at you know one would say it's an event like this because if you eat another way if there's lots of different ways of reading the the participant list and one way would be to identify the the people in it who are part of extremely high-powered and influential lobbying groups industrial or financial lobbying groups so for example up at this year's conference there's the head of the BDI which is the the largest industrial German industrial dhabi group and there are I think six members maybe of the European Roundtable industrialist which is a hugely influential lobbying group so when we talk about lobbying generally we are imagining it takes place kind of between executives of the company focusing on parts of the of the cut policy public policy they want affected whereas here the lobbying is taking place in an extremely high level almost so high you can't you can't see it because these are the very Chairman and CEOs of companies who are on on the boards of the lobbying groups that do the lobbying so and you know these are it's it's an event which takes place for three days behind closed doors with you know no press oversight so it's a what we're describing at least in one wave quite accurately is a vast lobbying event oh this is this is lobbying corporate lobbying at the very very highest level sure as Charlie says you know a brexit would be a disaster for big business and banking do you see the Bilderberg Group having any influence whatsoever on the outcome of the referendum in the UK very loaded question and I will have to be careful what I say here because I'd hate to be misquoted obviously there are forms of influence which investigative journalists historical researchers do their best to to kind of tease out to find out exactly how influential Bilderberg is in the public realm this is very very difficult to pin down but I do think because Bilderberg over the years has always invited journalists and public intellectuals to contribute to the internal debates but not be open about the impact of those debates on their own thinking and their own kind of public statements afterwards one has to assume that debates in the public realm will be in some shape or form influenced by the discussions going on and Bilderberg now I do want to emphasize that that does not mean that the Bilderberg meetings are dictating the debates in the public realm but it is inevitable that some of those sentiments and interests and as mr. Skelton has said some of the lobby interest are inevitably going to enter the public and their Bilderberg is is involved in that just the same way as other meeting groups I like that most Accenture are involved at the same time what about on issues like migration Giles are they you know where do they stand on on the issue of migration in Europe right now well certainly there will be a great deal of concern I mean it's that's that's an interesting issue that will cut right across I think political and economic lines you might see some interest feeling that this is an opportunity others going more down the national security line so another more kind of looking at the secondary damage to say kind of European Union as a functioning institution so I think that's a very tough issue it wouldn't surprise me if it's if it's definitely on the agenda there for discussion okay Charlie in dress and let me just put a question to you now do you think this group today is still relevant and do you think they should continue with these meeting do they bring anything do they add anything to the discussion or on you know world politics in terms of its relevance it's sometimes written off as sort of old men at the end of their careers meeting to play golf which is extremely dangerous misrepresentation of of a meeting where if you look at the the participants they're all the very hate of industries and banks not they're not old retired men they are the chairmen CEOs of giant industrial media and and financial institutions so from from their point of view they're still at the very top of their game they're still managing to attract you know vice presidents at the European Commission a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank except research or two prime ministers as I said so they're doing pretty well they're looking pretty healthy and they're also what they've done very interesting leandroop is moved into the world of high tech so on their board you'll find people like Eric Schmidt who's the head of alphabet which is the parent company of Google and Peter Thiel who's on the board of Facebook who set up PayPal and they're embracing such subjects as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity and looking at those and bringing people into the fold I take new media world so they're adapting they're changing and they're very they're still just as relevant as as they ever were whether or not it benefits anyone else I mean they'd like to think it is because you know if you look at them in the UK the Bilderberg functions is a charity you look at the there they're called the Bilderberg Association and this is a charity in inverted commas which is funded by Goldman Sachs and BP okay and and the the the stated aim of it is proposed public education okay Roenick since the public can't know what's going on there let's hear from Katie now in London Katie talked about this idea of an elite group that has nothing to do with normal people so my question is very simple should government officials elected officials who represent the people be allowed to participate in such a conference well of course they should be allowed to talk to and you know a range of interest the point is that they're doing that on a very different playing field that this is the sort of meeting that is you know has huge amounts of wealth behind it and it and it does make the difference that these people are treated you know to an all-expenses-paid weekend that they're able to pay for direct and private access I mean it's also the meeting that Garner's a whole amount of attention you know we're having this whole program talking about these people reinforcing the idea that this is where the important decisions are made so it's not about blocking access for anybody but it's about money being able to buy so much more access then other people can get you have perfectly legitimate ideas problems and experiences of the world so it's so it's about enforcing you know who matters and who doesn't and and therefore increasing the inequality and poverty that we care about well thank you all for a very interesting discussion it was good to hear your thoughts on this Charlie Skelton Katie right in drowse Kant Smith thank you for watching and thank you as well for watching you can always watch the program again anytime by visiting our website aljazeera.com for further discussion go to our Facebook page at facebook.com for /aj Inside Story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is raj insights from me fully bocce boy in the whole team thanks for watching bye for now you

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 312,882

Keywords: 4933239202001, al Jazeera, jazeera, insidestory, Dresden, Bilderberg Group, youtube, News, Germany, Al Jazeera English, nogeoblock, inside story

Id: HCBSYATuBX0

Length: 25min 10sec (1510 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 09 2016