As the Scandinavian sun almost but not quite sets on Bilderberg 2014, we can finally take a breath and look back at a significant year. So what did we learn?

2014 was the year of the accessory

For a notoriously camera-shy conference, a city-centre location was always going to be a challenge. Of course, some of the delegates relished the attention, like the catwalk king of Bilderberg, Björn Wahlroos.

Björn is chairman of the huge Finnish finance company the Sampo Group, and Bilderberg's best dressed man by a country mile. Those butterscotch slacks are nothing short of a triumph, and he knows it. A stickler for detail, Björn had his personal assistant spend the entire night getting the crimping right in that hanky. Worth every minute.

The only person at this year’s Bilderberg who came close to Björn in the style stakes was Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF.



Way to accessorise. A fabulous Hermès scarf and a box-fresh aquamarine Birkin bag. Stylish, devilishly expensive – the perfect bag in which to carry around statistics about third world debt.



Here’s Marie-Josée Kravis, advisor to the New York Fed, accessorizing brilliantly with her snake-effect silk scarf off on a power walk with her billionaire financier husband Henry Kravis, head of predatory investment company KKR. No one rocks sunglasses like this pair.

Not everyone at Bilderberg is a fabulous dresser

I feel sorry for the billionaire John Elkann. He has an Italianate sense of flair, but it quite often misfires. Elkann is the heir to the Agnelli billions and a board member of the Economist Group. He’s also the proud owner of the worst article of clothing manufactured in the last 700 years of western civilization.

Wow. It’s like a war crime against cashmere. And what’s going on with the shoulders? Are they padded? Did he knit it himself? Did he lose a dare? Does he not have a single person in his life to say: “John, you know that pink jumper you love so much? I threw it in the canal.”

Elkann is having a chuckle with ACE insurance boss Evan Greenberg, who sits on the board of Coca-Cola.

There’s no rest for the Bilderberg delegates

If you can bear to, look back at that image of Elkann. You’ll see in his right hand a wedge of papers. It’s really noticeable how many files, folders and documents the delegates carry around with them. You often see them revising in quiet corners, fiddling with their print-outs. It’s like they’re shuffling between exams.

And who can forget Ed Balls, locked outside Bilderberg, fumbling through an entire suitcase full of papers looking for his lanyard.

They’re busy little bees. On Saturday, one of this year’s conference participants was coaxed over to the security fence as he returned from an afternoon jog. It was Christian Rynning-Tønnesen, who runs Statkraft – the state-owned Norwegian energy company, and Europe’s biggest renewable energy producer. Christian seemed a little reluctant to go back into the hotel, and loitered around for a chat.

Christian Rynning-Tønnesen. Photograph: wearechange.org

When asked him if he was enjoying his weekend. He gave a rueful smile and replied: “I think enjoy is the wrong word. It's very ... interesting.” Intense? “Intense. Yes. It's meetings all the time.” He told us the participants get three hours off on the Saturday, and his break was almost over. “Now there's meetings scheduled; also tomorrow morning,” he revealed wearily. And off he jogged, up back towards the relentless Bilderberg grindstone.

Not everyone is built for Bilderberg

Christian Rynning-Tønnesen seemed altogether too “normal” to climb very far up the slippery pole of Bilderberg. Some people just can’t cut it. My heart went out to Jason Kenney, the Canadian minister of employment, social development & multiculturalism, who we watched having a tough time at the pre-dinner drinks party on Saturday night.

So near yet so far: inside the inner sanctum, but outside the inner circle. An impenetrable wall of bespoke tailoring standing between him and power. He looks wistful. I know that face. I’ve worn it enough times myself. It means: how soon can I leave this godforsaken party without it looking rude?

Not everyone wants the press to be here

The extra scrutiny afforded the group this year was particularly tough on General Keith Alexander, the recently replaced head of the NSA. The general gave a visible sigh when he was shown the lenses pointing at him...

Poor Keith. He really hates people looking at him without his permission. He’s spent so long snooping on the general public that it must have been a dreadful shock to the system to have the tables turned.

The very idea of 'privacy' is on the table

Alexander is a world expert in privacy (and how to rid the world of it), and it’s likely he had plenty to say during the conference discussion on the subject: “Does privacy exist?” Unfortunately I don’t know what he said, because the discussion was private.

This year, we got to witness a breakaway privacy chat that took place on the hotel patio ...

This is the transatlantic privacy debate in action. On the right, EU commissioner Viviane Reding, probably the most important privacy negotiator in Europe. In the middle, Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google – a company which has been widely criticised for its aggressive lobbying in Europe in the hope of less stringent privacy regulation. And on the left, Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir Technologies, which specialises in spyware and big data analytics.

They’re in private, discussing how much privacy should be afforded the public, while having their privacy paid for (at least in part) by the public.

Politicians can be lobbied at Bilderberg 24/7

Google spends millions lobbying the EU about privacy, but here they get to do it, at the very highest level, for free. Surrounded by predatory corporate titans, politicians just don’t stand a chance in this environment. Here Thomas Enders (right), CEO of giant arms manufacturer Airbus, makes a hungry lunge for Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt (left), but Victor Halberstadt of Goldman Sachs has deftly grabbed him. On this occasion, Goldman Sachs will feast first.



Bilderberg is less important than George Osborne’s cat

Sadly, not a great deal of mainstream ink was spilled describing this year’s Bilderberg. The Times didn’t seem to notice two serving British ministers were here. The heads of Nato, the IMF, BP, Shell, Google and MI6 walked straight past them, arm in arm. The Times saw nothing of interest. The supreme allied commander Europe turned cartwheels up the hotel steps; they didn’t bat an eyelid.

Likewise, Reuters didn’t carry a single reference to the event. The Daily Mail blinked for three days straight and missed it. Yet somehow, a few days prior, the Mail found plenty of time to report on George Osborne’s missing cat.



When the cat’s owner, the British chancellor of the exchequer, spends three days in Copenhagen debating the Ukraine with ministers, billionaire investors and top military brass, words fail them. What in the name of Goldman Sachs is wrong with these people?

The business plan of the alternative media is working

Luckily, the alternative media are doing a pretty good job of filing the vacuum. The footage of Rynning-Tønnesen was taken by Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange.org. He’s one of a group of crowd-funded journalists including Dan Dicks from pressfortruth.ca who have been funded by donations from their audience to come and cover Bilderberg. They also make money through their YouTube channels – it’s enough to live on and allows them to keep on doing what they’re doing.

Here’s what happened when they tracked down Peter Sutherland, chairman of Goldman Sachs International, as he strolled about Copenhagen with his new protégee Bilderberg first-timer Simon Coveney (Irish minister for agriculture, food and the marine).

There was no love lost between the alternative media and the conference organisers. Just before the conference began, the "Leiden ladies" were approached by Luke and Dan in the hotel, who attempted to engage them in a little conversation. (SPOILER ALERT: this venture ends with our intrepid crowd-funded journalists in the police cells.)

I’m sure Luke and Dan will be back next year, wherever the Bilderberg circus washes up. If you fancy an intense transparency-themed minibreak, you should consider coming along as well. The whispers on the streets of Copenhagen are that it could be Portugal. If we find out anything at all, we’ll stick it up on bilderbergmeetings.co.uk – which we’re slowly turning into a resource for journalists and researchers.

But for now, as they say in Copenhagen, I bid you a fond and foot-sore Medisterpølse.

• Charlie Skelton can be found on Twitter: @deyook.