Trilateral Commission

Jean -Claude Trichet (European chairman ) Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (North American chairman ) Yasuchika Hasegawa ( Pacific Asian chairman )

The Trilateral Commission is founded on the initiative of David Rockefeller at a Bilderberg conference in July 1973 private, policy advisory discussion group. The Commission is a company with about 400 most influential members of the three ( " tri " ) major international economic blocs, Europe, North America and Japan, and a few select representatives outside these economic zones. In this way, the Trilateral Commission combines experienced policy makers and the private sector. Objective is to improve cooperation between the three economic powers.

The Commission is financed by funds from foundations, corporations and private donations. In addition to the regional meetings each three -day meetings of the Trilateral Commission are held 5 times per year.

Chairman (European chairman ) of the group since April 2012, the Acting Chair, also launched by the honorary chairman David Rockefeller Group of Thirty and former ECB president Jean -Claude Trichet. Predecessor Trichet as European chairman until his appointment as Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. Loukas Papademos, former Vice President of the European Central Bank and from 10 November 2011 to 16 May 2012 Greek Prime Minister and leader of the then Greek interim government, resigned also after his election to the Greek Prime Minister for the time being out of the Trilateral Commission.

Founding Fathers

The Trilateral Commission was founded in mid 1973 by David Rockefeller. Sociologists have shown that this initiative was adopted at a Bilderberg conference. From June 1977 to November 1991 he served the Executive Committee and acted as North American Chairman. Today he serves as honorary chairman and has the Commission undertakes a lifelong curator.

Another important, prominent role in the founding of the Trilateral Commission played the Polish- American political scientist and next to Henry Kissinger, known as the gray eminence among the U.S. global strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski. Consequently, Brzezinski was 1973, the first director of the Trilateral Commission, this group of prominent political, academic and economic leaders from the U.S., Western Europe and Japan. From 1977 to 1981, Brzezinski National Security Advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Dr. Brzezinski returned in 1981 with the Commission and has held a leading role until 2009.

Membership

The Trilateral Commission generates its sphere of influence of the functions and activities of its members. The Commission includes in August 2012 a total of 390 members, including 160 from Europe, 120 from North America, and 110 from the Pacific Asia region.

The German Group

Within the European group, there again the quite strong representative German Group, which represents approximately 1 /6 of the European representatives of around 20 members.

Founded by Otto Graf Lambsdorff and Otto Wolff von Amerongen and registered as a non-profit organization since 1989 " German Group of the Trilateral Commission eV, Berlin" resides in the alliance forum of Allianz SE on Pariser Platz in Berlin -Mitte. Chairman of the German Group of the CDU Federal Executive Michael Fuchs, deputy is the former federal minister and deputy chairman of the German elite network Atlantik-Brücke, Edelgard Bulmahn (SPD). Deputy is the former president of the BDI Heinrich Weiss.

The following leaders are currently a member of the German Group of the Trilateral Commission:

  • Manfred Bischoff, Chairman of Daimler AG, formerly chaired the aerospace and defense giant EADS
  • Edelgard Bulmahn, SPD, MP, member of Foreign Affairs Committee, former Federal Minister, 2005-2009 Chairman Committee on Economics and Technology, Deputy. Chairman of Atlantic Bridge
  • Jürgen Chrobog, chaired BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, former Secretary of State in the Foreign Office, January 1995-June 2001 German Ambassador to the United States
  • Jürgen Fitschen, CEO German Bank AG, Chief Atlantic Bridge, American Academy in Berlin
  • Klaus -Dieter Frankenberger, head of foreign policy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  • Michael Fuchs, Member of Parliament, CDU Federal Board
  • Wolfgang Gerhardt, Member of Parliament, former chairman of the FDP, chaired by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom
  • Wolfgang Ischinger, Global Head of Government Relations and Supervisory Board, Allianz SE, Chief Atlantic Bridge, ECFR Council, American Academy in Berlin, the American Jewish Committee, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik
  • Kurt Joachim Lauk, 1992-1996 Board VEBA AG (now E.ON ) 1996-1999 Member of the Board of Daimler AG, June 2004 to June 2009 MEP for Baden- Württemberg in the European People's Party, currently President of the Economic Council of the CDU
  • Friedrich Merz, CEO Atlantic Bridge, CDU member, Mayer Brown LLP
  • Klaus -Peter Müller, Chairman of the Board of Commerzbank AG
  • Arend Oetker, President DGAP, INSM, Bureau Confederation of German Employers' Associations, Vice President of BDI, American Jewish Committee, International Advisory Board of Atlantic Bridge
  • Dieter Pfundt, Senior Advisor investment bank Silvia Quandt & Cie. AG. AG shareholders in Sal
  • Heinz Riesenhuber (CDU ), age 18, current President of the German Bundestag, the Supervisory Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Henkel
  • Andreas Schmitz, CEO of private bank HSBC Trinkaus, President of the Federal Association of German Banks
  • Henning Schulte- Noelle, 1991-2003 CEO of Allianz SE, 2003-2012 Chairman of the Board of Allianz SE Supervisory Board, E.ON and ThyssenKrupp AG
  • Heinrich Weiss, major shareholder and chairman industrial group SMS Demag, board member German Bahn AG, DB Mobility Logistics AG, Thyssen -Bornemisza Group and Voith AG, former President of the BDI

Other members (living and past, selection)

Josef Ackermann, Kurt Biedenkopf, Kurt Birrenbach, Zbigniew Brzezinski, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, Eckhard Cordes, Horst Ehmke, Dianne Feinstein, Arkadiusz Górski, Hans Hartwig, Dieter Hoffmann, Richard Holbrooke, Ludwig Huber, Horst Janott, Karl Kaiser, Walther Leisler Kiep, Henry Kissinger, Norbert Kloten, Horst Köhler, Erwin Kristoffersen, Otto Graf Lambsdorff, Hanns W. Maull, John McCain, Robert McNamara, Mario Monti, Alwin münchmeyer, Friedrich Neumann, Ewald Nowotny, Joseph Nye, Loukas Papademos, David Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller III, Edmund Rothschild, Volker Ruhe, Helmut Schmidt, Ronaldo Schmidt, Gerhard Schröder, Hans Günther Sohl, Theo Sommer, Peter Sutherland, Heinz Oskar Vetter, Norbert Wieczorek, Otto Wolff von Amerongen, Paul Wolfowitz, Joachim Zahn, Robert Zoellick

Criticism

Because of the secrecy and the more than scanty reports of meetings, seminars and conferences is the Trilateral Commission, among other think tanks, speculated and criticized. Essentially, the immediate vicinity of the policy to the economy and lack of transparency, cause of conjecture. Hans -Jürgen Krysmanski, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Münster, also doubted the private nature of conferences such as the Bilderberg or Davos and associations such as the Atlantic Bridge, the Council on Foreign Relations, the European Council on Foreign Relations or the Trilateral Commission.

He holds a doctorate at the Johann -Wolfgang- Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main sociologist and economist Rudolf Stumberger notes that between business and politics all barriers have disappeared, and this is moor also to people. Stumberger recognizes tendencies of refeudalization, that is, that in addition to official structures, precisely the democratic structures, winning the unofficial structures of self-appointed elites increasingly weight again.

The British political scientist Stephen Gill, who teaches at York University in Toronto, defines the concerns of the Trilateral Commission as follows: " Trilateralism can be defined as a project to develop an organic (or relatively permanent ) alliance between the biggest capitalist states with the aim of, a stable form of world order to promote ( or receive ) corresponding to their dominant interests. This includes a commitment to a more or less liberal international economic order. " ( Gill 1991:1 ² )

TK stands for Gill in the center of the analysis in the discussion about the decline of U.S. hegemony in international politics (see, for example, Keohane 1984, Kennedy 1987, Calleo 1987). Many researchers diagnosed for the 70s and 80s, a relative decline of U.S. hegemony because of the rise of economic powers in European Community (or EU) and Japan. Gill argues that although there is a crisis of U.S. hegemony was, the hegemony but I walked. He criticizes the state-centric view of the debate, stressing the long-term potential of institutions such as the Trilateral Commission, which serve to create common cultural and strategic concepts and specific forms of interaction and identification to generate the elites ( cf. Gill ² 1991: 75).

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