The 56th Bilderberg Meeting, which was held 5-8 June 2008, in Chantilly, Virginia, USA, continued its royal tradition. No less than four 'royals' attended the conference: Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Sofia of Spain, Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his Belgian counterpart Philip.
The closed doors conference this year dealt mainly with a nuclear free world, cyber terrorism, Africa, Russia, finance, protectionism, US-EU relations, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islam and Iran.
Apart from European royalty - with Queen Beatrix being a regular at these meetings - about two-thirds of the 140 participants came from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third was from government and politics, and two-thirds from finance, industry, labor, education, and communications.
Bilderberg takes its name from the hotel in The Netherlands where the first meeting took place in May 1954. Queen Beatrix' father Prince Bernhard was one of its key advocates.
What is unique about Bilderberg as a forum is the broad cross-section of leading citizens that are assembled for nearly three days of informal and off-the-record discussion about topics of current concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs and the international economy.
The privacy of the meetings, which has no purpose other than to allow participants to speak their minds openly and freely, according to a statement by the Bilderberg organisation. © GPD
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