The Diplomat
Hundreds of representatives of the highest level of the business, financial, political and academic world of Europe and the United States have gathered since yesterday in Madrid at the seventieth Bilderberg Meeting.
This exclusive meeting, characterized by secrecy surrounding the content of the interventions, will last until June 2 and in it the participants, among whom there is a large Spanish representation, will debate the evolution and challenges posed by the unstoppable takeoff of artificial intelligence, climate change, the war conflicts ravaging the Middle East and Ukraine and the economic challenges facing Europe and the US.
Founded in 1954, the Bilderberg Meeting is an annual conference – usually meeting between May and June – designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America. Each year just over a hundred political leaders and experts from industry, finance, labor, academia and the media are invited to participate.
From Spain, on this occasion, according to the information provided by the organization, the participation of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and Economy, Carlos Cuerpo; the governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos; the president of the Elcano Royal Institute, José Juan Ruiz; and the former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ildefonso Castro, main advisor to Alberto Núñez Feijóo on foreign policy.
As confirmed by the organization, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will attend the dinner scheduled for Saturday, although he will not participate in the conference.
The Spanish representation is completed by the president of Banco Santander, Ana Botín; the president of Grupo Planeta and Atresmedia, José Creuheras; Sol Daurella Comadrán, the president of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners – the largest bottler of the soft drink giant -; the president and CEO of Acciona, José Manuel Entrecanales; and the director of ‘El Español’, Pedro J. Ramírez.
The participation of the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, is also scheduled; from former vice president Nadia Calviño, current president of the European Investment Bank; the president of the Eurogroup, Paschal Donohoe; NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Innovation James Appathurai; Børge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum; the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the executive vice-president of the European Commission for the European Green Deal and Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight, Maroš Šefcovic.
The European Commissioners for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni; from Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra, and from the Interior, Ylva Johansson, have also confirmed their participation.
The Bilderberg Meeting is a forum for informal discussions on major topics, according to the organization, which maintains the rule that meetings are held under the Chatham House Rule, which establishes that those who participate are free to use the information received, but the identity or affiliation of the speaker or any other participant cannot be revealed.
This is intended to ensure that participants do so on an individual basis and, therefore, are not bound by the conventions of their position or by pre-agreed positions. Furthermore, there is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no policy statements are issued, and obviously no journalistic coverage is facilitated.
In its 70 editions, this is the third time it has been held in Spain, after in 1989 it took place at the Balneario Isla de La Toja (Pontevedra) and in 2010 at the Hotel Dolce in Sitges (Barcelona).
