The front-page story of AFP Issue 19 & 20 (available here for AFP Online subscribers; click here to review subscription options) asks, has Europe become too hot for the elite Bilderberg meeting? Where will they meet this year?
By Mark Anderson
Europe has become too inhospitable for Bilderberg, at least for the time being, according to Tony Gosling, a former colleague of AFP Bilderberg hound Jim Tucker, who worked with Tucker for several years exposing Bilderberg.
Gosling, an investigative journalist from Bristol, UK, points out that “euroskeptics,” who oppose the eurozone and the European Union itself—the very creation of which was nurtured by Bilderberg—said that candidates and politicians who want the national sovereignty of their nations restored are making headway, getting into political office. This includes Germany.
As a result, news of a Bilderberg meeting in Europe at a time of such strong anti-globalist sentiment and developments could prove damaging for the group, especially in terms of bringing back unwanted, widespread publicity about the secretive gathering—something the group has labored to control and reduce as much as possible in its more than six decades of existence.
“They could cause a lot of trouble for themselves meeting in Europe,” Gosling said, as Bilderberg prepares for its 67th meeting in 65 years. “They could end up on a lot of front pages, which they don’t want.”
That kind of publicity was seen last year when Italian populist politicos in the Five Star Movement and other parties made noise against Bilderberg’s meeting in Turin, Italy. While the coverage was not “deafening,” to Bilderberg—a transnational planning and networking outfit that brings together the best, the brightest, and the wealthiest from carefully selected fields in the public and private sectors—any sustained or meaningful coverage that doesn’t dismiss Bilderberg’s opponents is darkly frowned upon.
The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper did manage to briefly infiltrate the 2018 Bilderberg meeting in Italy. While the infiltration was limited and the resulting article was not up to AFP’s or Gosling’s standards, the development was another pushback against Bilderberg’s secrecy in Europe—the cradle of its birth in 1954 via Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and obscure European Movement organizer Josef Retinger. CIA money helped fund the first Bilderberg meeting in the Netherlands at the Hotel de Bilderberg, hence the group’s name.
Since Europe may prove too “hot” for Bilderberg for now, and Bilderberg met too recently (2017) in the U.S. to return to the States, where might they meet this year?
The strong belief is Canada will host the next gathering. The Bilderbergers last met there in 2006 at the Brookstreet Hotel in the national capital of Ottawa. A return there appeared possible at press time, since Bilderberg rather frequently returns to past venues. The group has met at the Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Va., several times, including in 2008, 2012, and 2017.
Another august hotel in Ottawa where the group could conceivably meet is the Hotel Fairmont Chateau Laurier, where even the cheapest rooms book for more than $600 per night.
“It’s always a guessing game,” said Gosling, who warmly remembers working with Tucker—something this writer did three times in 2010 through 2012. “The group always puts out a lot of bum steers to mislead the Bilderberg watchers.”
Author Daniel Estulin, another longtime Bilderberg watcher who in 2017 released a movie about Bilderberg, told AFP that even he did not know where the group will meet in 2019, indicating perhaps that the Bilderbergers are trying to put the proverbial “publicity genie” back in the bottle and avoid hostile environments whenever possible.
Mark Anderson is AFP’s roving editor. Email him at [email protected].
