No press conference in sight as Bilderberg stays largely under wraps There are signs that the conference’s love affair with silence may be waning, but it remains secretive and highly policed “The paintings at the old master picture gallery are wonderful!” gushed the LVMH director Marie-Josée Kravis, as she wafted stylishly back to the conference. “You simply must go and have a look.” It was a charming and engaging answer to my question, even if my question had been: “Do you think Bilderberg will hold a press conference this year?” It is possible, as a Bilderberg steering committee member, that she has forgotten what the words press conference mean.

No press conference in sight as Bilderberg stays largely under wraps

There are signs that the conference’s love affair with silence may be waning, but it remains secretive and highly policed

“The paintings at the old master picture gallery are wonderful!” gushed the LVMH director Marie-Josée Kravis, as she wafted stylishly back to the conference. “You simply must go and have a look.” It was a charming and engaging answer to my question, even if my question had been: “Do you think Bilderberg will hold a press conference this year?” It is possible, as a Bilderberg steering committee member, that she has forgotten what the words press conference mean. The phrase must have sounded like a baffling mishmash of alien syllables, so Kravis panicked and talked about art instead. I turned to her husband, the billionaire investor Henry Kravis, scuttling along by her side. “How’s business at KKR?” I asked. Henry Kravis tightened his Wall Street jaw into a kind of terrifying aborted smile, and in the distance a dog howled. It is just as well that Marie-Josée Kravis is an art lover. She married someone who was painted by Francisco Goya.

As Henry maintained his grim silence, the pair were ushered in through the security cordon. Luckily, a few other delegates had nipped out for bit of sightseeing during a break in the schedule, and I managed to buttonhole the Italian financier and longstanding Bilderberg insider Franco Bernabè as he strolled anonymously across a square in Dresden. I asked again about a press conference. A reasonable question, I thought, considering the number of senior politicians at the conference - four finance ministers, two prime ministers, three German cabinet members, a vice-president of the European commission, the head of the Swiss parliament ... The list goes on.

Bernabè laughed and nodded towards the conference venue. “There are quite a few of your colleagues in there. Members of the press. Journalists.” He seemed genuinely tickled by this irony and chuckled his way back inside.

I was glad I was able to lighten Bernabè’s day, but I found his remark thoroughly depressing. A major political summit, one of the biggest in the geopolitical calendar, and pretty much the only mainstream journalists who show up are inside the conference, bound by the omertà of Bilderberg.

Holding politicians to account is one thing. Holding the door open for the Irish finance minister, Michael Noonan, as he heads back in for a second breakfast before an arduous morning spent discussing the European economy behind closed doors with the chairman of HSBC, is another.