Koç pops up at Bilderberg: could this be the year to let it all hang out?
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Version 0 of 1. There was an unfortunate limo-jam outside the gates of the Interalpen-Hotel. Over to the side was a whispering huddle of police, flicking hopelessly through a list of names and shrugging, while a row of V12 Mercedes idled angrily. What was happening? Had the organisers realised they’d made a terrible mistake inviting Ed Balls and scratched his name at the last minute? A people carrier pulled up to the back of the queue, carrying a face I knew well. It was Turkish billionaire and Bilderberg steering committee member, Mustafa Koç. He rubbed the back of his wrestler’s neck with a meaty hand and looked profoundly unamused by the Koç block. I haven’t witnessed a Koç being denied entry this embarrassingly since my university leaving ball. After snapping a quick Koç pic I ventured a hello. “Mr Koç!” I cried, and gave a friendly wave. He nodded back. I introduced myself, and took his photo again. This suddenly felt a little rude in the middle of a more than usually human moment, so I apologised. “No problem,” he said, and smiled. Oh my goodness, this was it: dialogue! The great I-Thou connection at the root of all human interaction. Me and Koç, two souls reaching out to each other, across the barricades. I pressed on. “Are you looking forward to the conference?” His eyes shone and he nodded a yes. “And what are your thoughts on the recent Turkish elections?” at which point our burgeoning friendship was cut short tragically short when Koç’s driver raised his window. The bottleneck cleared and Koç shot off. I appreciate Skelton-Koç may not have been Frost-Nixon, but it was a rare moment of humanity across the barricades. And let’s face it, this meagre exchange shouted across a driver’s chest is probably the closest we’ll get to a press conference this whole Bilderberg. I have to say, the cavernous lack of press co-operation from what is an important political summit, attended by politicians, prime ministers, and public policymakers, is seeming more absurd by the year. At this year’s summit for example, the subject of “Greece” is being discussed by three European prime ministers, the Austrian president, a member of the executive board of the European Central Bank, two European finance ministers (including George Osborne) and the head of the Dutch national bank. Some major players in the game. Discussing it with them, we have a large number of CEOs and chairpersons from some extremely large financial institutions, all of whom have a keen interest in what happens to Greece: the assembled heads of HSBC, Lazard, Deutsche Bank, Santander and KKR; board members of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs; the chairman of Goldman Sachs International; and the vice-chairman of BlackRock. All these public officials meeting with all these corporations, and no representation whatsoever from any serving Greek politicians. And no press oversight. It might perhaps be wiser, and certainly more respectful towards the journalists who are being harassed by police, and the electorates of the politicians who are attending, for the Bilderberg group to hold a press conference on the final day. There’s a precedent for this: it’s what they used to do, before the Lockheed scandal and the resignation of Prince Bernhard saw them retreat further into secrecy. I’ve seen footage of a Bilderberg press conference from the 1970s. It could happen again. I’m sure the funding that Goldman Sachs and BP funnel into the Bilderberg conferences (as revealed in the annual returns of the Bilderberg Association) could cover a few rows of chairs and a microphone. Nothing fancy. A short statement and a few Q&As. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Just give us something resembling a wheel. A chopped log would do at a pinch. We’ll take anything. We’re tired of watching diplomatic passports being slid above tinted windows. Tired of politicians hiding their faces, and ministers refusing to talk about what they talked about. Tired of police officers who, when they aren’t hassling journalists, are lining up in ranks in front of limousines to obscure the view. Now here’s an idea: maybe Mustafa Koç could help enable this press conference? The Koç family’s conglomerate, the brilliantly named Koç Holding, lists “four main inviolable principles” in its articles of corporate governance, and the very first of these is “transparency”. Koç himself, the chairman of the company, seems happy to chat to the press, and he’s spoken out against corruption in politics. He said recently, just before his country’s elections: “Our people deserve clean politics.” Clean politics is open politics. Transparency lets the sunlight in. Koç might have a fight on his hands, but he looks like someone who doesn’t mind twisting arms. And there’s no denying that Koç is a powerful presence at Bilderberg. There are a lot of friends of Koç on the steering committee, so when it comes to lobbying for better press relations, maybe Koç can swing it? Surely something this simple wouldn’t be hard for Koç. Not a Koç that powerful. After all, Koç is hugely connected in the world of business. He’s a member of the International Advisory board of Rolls-Royce, and sits on JPMorgan’s International Advisory Council alongside Tony Blair. And his fellow member of the steering committee, Peter Sutherland, the chairman of Goldman Sachs International, is on the board of Koç Holding. And I think, in some small way, I have an understanding with Koç. So, in the spirit of dialogue and progress, of transparency and “clean politics”, I’m reaching out to Koç, to help make this press conference happen. I may be wrong, my dreams my come to nothing, but I have a strange feeling that 2015 might just be the year of Koç. |