The Grove
© The GroveLondon 2012: British Olympians' favourite hotels
The Bilderberg Group, an annual gathering of royalty, statesmen and business leaders, will this week take place at the Grove Hotel, a golf resort in Watford, Hertfordshire.

Guests will include George Osborne, the Chancellor; Ed Balls, the Shadow Chancellor; and Ken Clarke, the Cabinet Minister who also sits on the group's steering committee, according to a list of participants published on www.bilderbergmeetings.org.

Other attendees include Lord Mandelson, the former Labour First Secretary; Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State; Timothy Geithner, the former Secretary of the US Treasury, and Gen David Petraeus, the former Allied commander in Afghanistan and head of the CIA.

Delegates from business include Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google; Peter Sutherland, the chairman of Goldman Sachs; Robert Dudley, the chief executive of BP; Douglas Flint, the chairman of HSBC and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com.

The group will discuss how the US and Europe can promote growth, the way 'big data' is changing 'almost everything', the challenges facing the continent of Africa and the threat of cyber warfare, according to an agenda published today.

The politics of the European Union, debt, advancements in medical research, the Middle East and 'current affairs' will also be debated.

The concentration of politicians and business leaders has meant the organisation, founded at the Bilderberg Hotel near Arnhem in 1954, has faced accusations of secrecy. It has been at the centre of a number of conspiracy theories.

More conventionally, the group is likened to the World Economic Forum in Davos and provides an opportunity for leaders to discuss the challenges facing Europe and the United States free from the constraints of public office.

Meetings take place behind closed doors, with a ban on journalists. There is no agenda and no votes are taken or public statements issued.

Delegates are able to speak on an informal, off-the-record basis and are not bound by their public, "pre-agreed" positions. This, the organisers say, allows delegates to "take time to listen, reflect and gather insights."

Bilderberg delegates in full

Chairman: Henri de Castries, Chairman and CEO, AXA Group

Paul M. Achleitner, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG

Josef Ackermann, Chairman of the Board, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd

Marcus Agius, Former Chairman, Barclays plc

Helen Alexander, Chairman, UBM plc

Roger C. Altman, Executive Chairman, Evercore Partners

Matti Apunen, Director, Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA

Susan Athey, Professor of Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, Columnist, Milliyet Newspaper

Ali Babacan, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Financial Affairs

Ed Balls, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA

Nicolas Barré, Managing Editor, Les Echos

José Manuel Barroso, President, European Commission

Nicolas Baverez, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Olivier de Bavinchove, Commander, Eurocorps

John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford

Franco Bernabè, Chairman and CEO, Telecom Italia S.p.A.

Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com

Carl Bildt, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs

Anders Borg, Swedish Minister for Finance

Jean François van Boxmeer, CEO, Heineken

Svein Richard Brandtzæg, President and CEO, Norsk Hydro ASA

Oscar Bronner, Publisher, Der Standard Medienwelt

Peter Carrington, Former Honorary Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings

Juan Luis Cebrián, Executive Chairman, Grupo PRISA

Edmund Clark, President and CEO, TD Bank Group

Kenneth Clarke, Cabinet Minister

Bjarne Corydon, Danish Minister of Finance

Sherard Cowper-Coles, Business Development Director, International, BAE Systems plc

Enrico Cucchiani, CEO, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA

Etienne Davignon, Belgian Minister of State; Former Chairman, Bilderberg Meetings

Ian Davis, Senior Partner Emeritus, McKinsey & Company

Robbert H. Dijkgraaf, Director and Leon Levy Professor, Institute for Advanced Study

Haluk Dinçer, President, Retail and Insurance Group, Sabancı Holding A.S.

Robert Dudley, Group Chief Executive, BP plc

Nicholas N. Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute

Espen Barth Eide, Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs

Börje Ekholm, President and CEO, Investor AB

Thomas Enders, CEO, EADS

J. Michael Evans, Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs & Co.

Ulrik Federspiel, Executive Vice President, Haldor Topsøe A/S

Martin S.Feldstein, Professor of Economics, Harvard University; President Emeritus, NBER

François Fillon, Former French Prime Minister

Mark C. Fishman, President, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

Douglas J. Flint, Group Chairman, HSBC Holdings plc

Paul Gallagher, Senior Counsel

Timothy F Geithner, Former Secretary of the Treasury

Michael Gfoeller, US Political Consultant

Donald E. Graham, Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company

Ulrich Grillo, CEO, Grillo-Werke AG

Lilli Gruber, Journalist - Anchorwoman, La 7 TV

Luis de Guindos, Spanish Minister of Economy and Competitiveness

Stuart Gulliver, Group Chief Executive, HSBC Holdings plc

Felix Gutzwiller, Member of the Swiss Council of States

Victor Halberstadt, Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings

Olli Heinonen, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Simon Henry, CFO, Royal Dutch Shell plc

Paul Hermelin, Chairman and CEO, Capgemini Group

Pablo Isla, Chairman and CEO, Inditex Group

Kenneth M. Jacobs, Chairman and CEO, Lazard

James A. Johnson, Chairman, Johnson Capital Partners

Thomas J. Jordan, Chairman of the Governing Board, Swiss National Bank

Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Managing Director, Lazard Freres & Co. LLC

Robert D. Kaplan, Chief Geopolitical Analyst, Stratfor

Alex Karp, Founder and CEO, Palantir Technologies

John Kerr, Independent Member, House of Lords

Henry A. Kissinger, Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.

Klaus Kleinfeld, Chairman and CEO, Alcoa

Klaas H.W. Knot, President, De Nederlandsche Bank

Mustafa V Koç,. Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.

Roland Koch, CEO, Bilfinger SE

Henry R. Kravis, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

Marie-Josée Kravis, Senior Fellow and Vice Chair, Hudson Institute

André Kudelski, Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group

Ulysses Kyriacopoulos, Chairman, S&B Industrial Minerals S.A.

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

J. Kurt Lauk, Chairman of the Economic Council to the CDU, Berlin

Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School

Thomas Leysen, Chairman of the Board of Directors, KBC Group

Christian Lindner, Party Leader, Free Democratic Party (FDP NRW)

Stefan Löfven, Party Leader, Social Democratic Party (SAP)

Peter Löscher, President and CEO, Siemens AG

Peter Mandelson, Chairman, Global Counsel; Chairman, Lazard International

Jessica T. Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Frank McKenna, Chair, Brookfield Asset Management

John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist

Thierry de Montbrial, President, French Institute for International Relations

Mario Monti, Former Italian Prime Minister

Craig J. Mundie, Senior Advisor to the CEO, Microsoft Corporation

Alberto Nagel, CEO, Mediobanca

H.R.H. Princess Beatrix of The Netherlands

Andrew Y.Ng, Co-Founder, Coursera

Jorma Ollila, Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell, plc

David Omand, Visiting Professor, King's College London

George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer

Emanuele Ottolenghi, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Soli Özel, Senior Lecturer, Kadir Has University; Columnist, Habertürk Newspaper

Alexis Papahelas, Executive Editor, Kathimerini Newspaper

Şafak Pavey, Turkish MP

Valérie Pécresse, French MP

Richard N. Perle, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

David H. Petraeus, General, U.S. Army (Retired)

Paulo Portas, Portugal Minister of State and Foreign Affairs

J. Robert S Prichard, Chair, Torys LLP

Viviane Reding, Vice President and Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, European Commission

Heather M. Reisman, CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.

Hélène Rey, Professor of Economics, London Business School

Simon Robertson, Partner, Robertson Robey Associates LLP; Deputy Chairman, HSBC Holdings

Gianfelice Rocca, Chairman,Techint Group

Jacek Rostowski, Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister

Robert E. Rubin, Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Former Secretary of the Treasury

Mark Rutte, Dutch Prime Minister

Andreas Schieder, Austrian State Secretary of Finance

Eric E. Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google Inc.

Rudolf Scholten, Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG

António José Seguro, Secretary General, Portuguese Socialist Party

Jean-Dominique Senard, CEO, Michelin Group

Kristin Skogen Lund, Director General, Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

Peter D. Sutherland, Chairman, Goldman Sachs International

Martin Taylor, Former Chairman, Syngenta AG

Tidjane Thiam, Group CEO, Prudential plc

Peter A. Thiel, President, Thiel Capital

Craig B. Thompson, President and CEO, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Jakob Haldor Topsøe, Partner, AMBROX Capital A/S

Jutta Urpilainen, Finnish Minister of Finance

Daniel L. Vasella, Honorary Chairman, Novartis AG

Peter R. Voser, CEO, Royal Dutch Shell plc

Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan Province, Canada

Jacob Wallenberg, Chairman, Investor AB

Kevin Warsh, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Galen G.Weston, Executive Chairman, Loblaw Companies Limited

Baroness Williams of Crosby, Member, House of Lords

Martin H. Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator, The Financial Times

James D. Wolfensohn, Chairman and CEO, Wolfensohn and Company

David Wright, Vice Chairman, Barclays plc

Robert B. Zoellick, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics