The Bilderberg Meeting (also known as the Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg Conference or Bilderberg Club) is an annual off-the-record forum established in 1954 to foster dialogue between Europe and North America. The group's agenda, originally to prevent another world war, is now defined as bolstering a consensus around free market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe. Participants include political leaders, experts, captains of industry, finance, and academia, numbering between 120 and 150.
Attendees are entitled to use information gained at meetings, but not attribute it to a named speaker—an arrangement, called the Chatham House Rule, that the club says is meant to encourage candid debate while maintaining privacy. Critics from a wide range of viewpoints have called it into question, and it has drawn conspiracy theories from both the left and right.
Meetings were chaired by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands until 1975. The current Chairman is French businessman Henri de Castries. Since 1954, the meeting has taken place every year except in 1976, when it was cancelled due to the Lockheed bribery scandals involving Prince Bernhard, and in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 71st Bilderberg Meeting took place from June 12 to 15, 2025 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Origin
The first conference holds its name from the location where it was first held from the 29th to the 31st of May 1954; the Bilderberg Hotel (Hotel De Bilderberg) in Oosterbeek, Netherlands.Atlas Obscura, "Hotel de Bilderberg" The hotel also gave its name to the attendees of the conference, the "Bilderbergers". The hotel is situated in a quiet location, approximately 7 kilometers west of the city of Arnhem.Gijswijt, Thomas, W., Informal Alliance: The Bilderberg Group and Transatlantic Relations during the Cold War, 1952–1968 (2018), Routledge. "The Hotel de Bilderberg was a medium-sized family-run hotel, chosen mainly for its quiet and remote location in the forests of the eastern Netherlands. It was not a particularly fancy hotel...but security was relatively easy to maintain since there was only one access road." It is owned and operated by the Bilderberg hotel chain, which runs 12 hotels and an event location in the Netherlands and one hotel in Germany.Bilderberg hotels At the time of the 1954 conference, it was a medium-sized family-run hotel.
The conference was initiated by several people, including Polish politician-in-exile Józef Retinger who, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting Atlanticism—better understanding between the cultures of the United States and Western Europe to foster cooperation on political, economic, and defense issues.
Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who agreed to promote the idea, together with former Belgian prime minister Paul van Zeeland, and the then head of Unilever, Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, the then head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser Charles Douglas Jackson to deal with the suggestion. The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent "conservative" and "liberal" points of view. Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference, along with 11 Americans.
The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent steering committee was established with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committee also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity. Conferences were held in France, Germany, and Denmark over the following three years. In 1957, the first U.S. conference was held on St. Simons Island, Georgia, with $30,000 from the Ford Foundation. The foundation also supplied funding for the 1959 conference in Turkey and 1963 conference in France.
Participants
The participants are between 120 and 150 people, including political leaders, experts from industry, finance, NATO, academia and the media. About two thirds of the participants come from Europe and the rest from North America; one third from politics and government and the rest from other fields. Historically, attendee lists have been weighted toward bankers, politicians, directors of large businesses and board members from large publicly traded corporations. Heads of state, including former King Juan Carlos I of Spain and former Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, have attended meetings. A source connected to the group told The Daily Telegraph in 2013 that others, whose names are not publicly issued, sometimes turn up "just for the day" at the group's meetings."Bilderberg Group? No conspiracy, just the most influential group in the world". The Daily Telegraph (London). 6 June 2013. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
The Swedish banker and industrialist Marcus Wallenberg Jr. was a member of the steering committee and attended the meeting twenty-two times from the 1950s to 1981, a year prior to his death. His grandson Marcus Wallenberg has attended it eight times and his other grandson, Jacob Wallenberg, seventeen times.
Meetings
Activities and goals The group's original goal of promoting Atlanticism, strengthening US-European relations, and preventing another world war has grown. According to Andrew Kakabadse, the Bilderberg Group's theme is to "bolster a consensus around free-market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe". In 2001, Denis Healey, a Bilderberg group founder and a steering committee member for 30 years, said,
According to the web page of the group, the meetings are conducted under the Chatham House Rule, allowing the participants to use any information they gained during the meeting, but not to disclose the names of the speakers or any other participants. According to former chairman Étienne Davignon in 2011, a major attraction of Bilderberg group meetings is that they provide an opportunity for participants to speak and debate candidly and to find out what major figures really think, without the risk of off-the-cuff comments becoming fodder for controversy in the media. A 2008 press release from the "American Friends of Bilderberg" stated that "Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference and that at the meetings, no resolutions were proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued." However, in November 2009, the group hosted a dinner meeting at the Château of Val-Duchesse in Brussels outside its annual conference to promote the candidacy of Herman Van Rompuy for President of the European Council.
Organizational structure Meetings are organized by a steering committee with two members from each of approximately 18 nations. Official posts include a chairman and an Honorary Secretary General. The group's rules do not contain a membership category but former participants receive the annual conference reports.Introduction p. 3 in Bilderberg meetings, Schnews, 1999 The only category that exists is "member of the steering committee". Besides the committee, there is a separate advisory group with overlapping membership.Entry for Conrad Black,
Dutch economist Ernst van der Beugel became permanent secretary in 1960, upon Retinger's death. Prince Bernhard continued to serve as the meeting's chairman until 1976, the year of his involvement in the Lockheed affair. The position of Honorary American Secretary General has been held successively by Joseph E. Johnson of the Carnegie Endowment; William Bundy of Princeton University; Theodore L. Eliot Jr., former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan; and Casimir A. Yost of Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
According to James A. Bill, the "steering committee usually met twice a year to plan programs and to discuss the participant list".
In 2002, in Them: Adventures with Extremists, author Jon Ronson wrote that the group has a small central office in Holland which each year decides what country will host the forthcoming meeting. The host country then has to book an entire hotel for four days, plus arrange catering, transport and security. To fund this, the host solicits donations from sympathetic corporations such as Barclays, Fiat Automobiles, GlaxoSmithKline, Heinz, Nokia and Xerox.
Chairmen of the Steering Committee
Chairmen of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg MeetingsTenure as ChairmanCountryOffice(s) Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld (1911–2004) 29 May 1954 – 29 September 1976 () Netherlands Prince consort of the Netherlands (1948–1980) Inspector general of the Armed forces of the Netherlands (1970–1976) Inspector general of the Royal Netherlands Air Force (1953–1970) Inspector general of the Royal Netherlands Navy (1946–1970) Inspector general of the Royal Netherlands Army (1945–1970) Commander-in-chief of the Armed forces of the Netherlands (1944–1945) Alec Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel (1903–1995) 22 April 1977 – 20 April 1980 () United Kingdom Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1963–1964) Leader of the Conservative Party (1963–1965) Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1960–1963, 1970–1974) Lord President of the Council (1957, 1959–1960) Leader of the House of Lords (1957–1960) Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (1955–1960) Member of the House of Lords (1951–1963, 1974–1995) Member of Parliament (1931–1945, 1950–1951, 1963–1974) Walter Scheel (1919–2016) 15 May 1981 – 12 May 1985 () Germany President of Germany (1974–1979) (Acting) Chancellor of Germany (1974) Vice-Chancellor (1969–1974) Minister of Foreign Affairs (1969–1974) Leader of the Free Democratic Party (1968–1974) Minister of Economic Cooperation (1961–1969) Member of the European Parliament (1956–1961) Member of the Bundestag (1953–1974) Eric Roll, Baron Roll of Ipsden (1907–2005) 25 April 1986 – 14 May 1989 () United Kingdom Member of the House of Lords (1977–2005) Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington (1919–2018) 11 May 1990 – 17 May 1998 () United Kingdom Secretary General of NATO (1984–1988) Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1979–1982) Secretary of State for Energy (1974) Chairman of the Conservative Party (1972–1974) Secretary of State for Defence (1970–1974) Leader of the House of Lords (1963–1964) Minister without portfolio (1963–1964) First Lord of the Admiralty (1959–1963) High Commissioner to Australia (1956–1959) Member of the House of Lords (1941–2018) Étienne Davignon, Viscount Davignon (1932–2026) 3 June 1999 – 12 June 2011 () Belgium European Commissioner for Industrial Affairs and Energy (1981–1985) European Commissioner for Internal Market, Customs Union and Industrial Affairs (1977–1981) Henri de Castries (born 1954) 31 May 2012 – 2019 (7 years) France Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Axa (2000–2016)Victor Halberstadt (1939–2024)30 April 2020-2024 (co-chair)NetherlandsCrown Member of the Social-Economic
Council
(1972–2024)Marie-Josée Kravis (born 1949)30 April 2020 (co-chair)CanadaEntrepreneur Philanthropist
Director Henri de Castries (born 1954) 2025 (co-chair) France Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Axa (2000–2016)
Criticism
There have been long standing concerns about lobbying, since senior policymakers meet with corporate lobbyists, and in the case of the 2015 meeting even with senior figures at Transparency International.
Partly because of its working methods to ensure strict privacy and secrecy, the Bilderberg Group has been criticised for its lack of transparency and accountability.