Bajnai and Bilderberg – the plot thickens

A liberal weekly calls recent accusations by right-wing pundits against the Bilderberg Group conspiracy theories, while a pro-government commentator thinks the invitation to Gordon Bajnai this year may signal an intention to interfere in Hungarian domestic politics.

Gordon Bajnai, the former PM,  attended the Copenhagen Bilderberg conference last weekend as the only Hungarian participant at the annual gathering of global political and economic leaders, provoking widespread criticism in the right-wing media. (See BudaPost June 2nd.)

On Magyar Narancs’s blog site, Tamás Szele dismisses such views as “conspiracy theories”, and remarks ironically that although the presence of National Bank Chairman György Matolcsy would have been an occasion for more merriment, these “dull” people wanted to discuss economic matters and Magyar Narancs believes that Gordon Bajnai is probable the best candidate for that. Szele also rejects the suspicion that secrecy hides vile intents. The Bilderberg Club, they remark, adheres to so-called Chatham House rules, according to which participants are free to talk about what was said at the conference but must not mention the speakers by name. Szele also points out that Index.hu published the agenda of the meeting with topics that are widely discussed worldwide.

In his regular Magyar Nemzet column political analyst and pro-government Peace March organizer Tamás Fricz calls the Bilderberg club the very antithesis of democracy. He maintains that the meeting is surrounded by a veil of secrecy and asks if “CNN, the BBC and Reuters tolerate such secrecy because their owners are members of the group”. He also emphasizes the presence of outgoing EC Commissioner Viviane Reding, a vocal critic of Viktor Orbán. Fricz agrees with other right wing commentators who suggest that the Bilderberg group is the second most important international forum after the Council of Foreign Relations. He also claims that it was the Bilderberg group that turned “a completely unknown Clinton” into a president, and he ridicules left-liberal commentators who say the conference is simply a meeting of world leaders. “They will have to apologize, he adds, when it turns out that our conspiracy theories were right”.

Tags: Bajnai