Reading the reports of the Bilderberg Group meeting last week set me thinking : we need Bilderberg in Brussels.
The Bilderberg Group is the secretive annual conference of world leaders from the domains of business, politics, and finance. It met last week in the UK amidst controversy over exactly what was being decided behind closed doors. Some believe that the Group is a secret cabal which plots world domination. Others that it is just a forum for discussion.
Now, Brussels is in many ways the world capital of meetings. It’s what we do. All kinds of meetings. Working groups, strategy meetings, board meetings, trade association meetings, coalition meetings, Parliamentary meetings, seminars, roundtables, general assemblies… But we still have a lot to learn. I mean, Bilderberg meets once a year, for two days. And they manage world domination in that time. Now I’ve chaired and facilitated a lot of meetings in Brussels in my time. But world domination? In two days? Can you imagine if Bilderberg met in Brussels…
Look we really must get started, it’s twenty minutes past now – no, we had said registration at 0830, meeting starts at 0900 Mr Kissinger, you should know that by now…
Yes Mr Geithner, you can submit travel expenses – I think Mr Papalexopoulos is in charge of the money – yes, under the supervision of Mrs Merkel of course… no, Mr Flint we are not paying expenses in cash this year, nor in the form of off-shore credit derivatives – no, I don’t care if that is normal practice at HSBC…
First item on the agenda is our vision for global hegemony – yes, a point of order?
Well, yes, thank you Mr Davignon, so you would say that global hegemony is our mission, not our vision? Remember we did have our strategic vision working group look at this issue last – yes, sorry Mme Lagarde?
Ok, well I do accept that accurate translation of meeting documents in advance is essential if the meeting is to be a success – sorry, yes I think we had said six weeks in the original language but only three weeks for translations, no? Yes, thank you Mr Schmidt, it’s true that we could use Google Drive to share our meeting documents in advance, but there were some security concerns raised by Mr Ballmer on that one…
No, I have to defer to our governance working group on this one, we do have rules of procedure – EXCUSE ME, through the Chair please General Petraeus, I don’t know how you deal with interuptions in your organisation… oh, I see… well I suppose that is one solution, but we really don’t have the facilities for water-boarding here, so let’s just stick to the agenda shall we?
Look, we’ve been through this whole official languages / working languages debate several times already, I really don’t want to…
Yes, Mme Lagarde we did adopt that resolution about French being the cultural language of global domination, but English being the working language of oppression which helped us move forwards during that unfortunate episode with the monolingual lunch menus last time…
No, M. Trichet I was not minimising that for an instant – of course I appreciate the very delicate work of Carl Bildt in negotiating a compromise on that occasion, I think we did pass a resolution thanking him. Yes Mr Monti I am aware that you abstained on that motion because the pasta was not al dente…
If we can just get back to the agenda please? Now, Mr Blair, you had a point about vision and mission I think? Well, absolutely, of course we mustn’t forget about values in this discussion as well – MRS MERKEL!! Please stop sniggering whenever Mr Blair mentions ‘values’…
Yes, thank you President Barroso it’s true that we should define ‘hegemony’ more closely. No. No. No. Look: for the last time ‘hegemony’ does NOT mean ‘jobs and growth’. Hegemony means power. No, I don’t have a Portuguese translation for power Mr Barroso, but I’m pretty sure that Open Method of Coordination is not a synonym, nor is it an appropriate tool for global domination.
Mr Mandelson? Yes, it’s true that the role of soft power is greatly underestimated by some delegates, but I think that Mr Fu Ying has a point when he observed that ‘coordination’ is not the quickest route to ‘domination’…
And if you recall, Mr Barroso we decided not to call our strategy Global 2020 at the last meeting, sorry.
Yes Mr Cameron? You have a problem with the word ‘Global’ …? Look, we already removed all references to ‘European’ from the strategy document in recognition of your difficulties with the word… but if we are not global then what are we?
…well, in the spirit of compromise of course… perhaps we could call it the Bilderberg Vision for Global Hegemonic Coordination Within a Framework of Subsidiarity.
OK, well done everyone, let’s break for lunch shall we?
Simon Wilson, a freelance consultant at Mojo Working and an external Director at Edelman Brussels.