It will be, as was predicted on the eve, Saudi Arabia, which received 119 votes in favour, to organize Expo 2030. For Italy it is a painful defeat but a defeat announced: however, the only 17 votes collected are a debacle . We got fewer than South Korea (37 votes). Let's reconstruct the whole story from the origins.
Three years ago, when an intuition of Unindustria Roma was seized upon and valorised by a highly experienced former diplomat turned entrepreneur like Giuseppe Scognamiglio, the world was very different from today. There was not the war in Gaza and also the Ukrainian crisis, which had been dragging on for some time, had not yet exploded in all its drama with the Russian invasion, so much so that the Government of Kiev felt at ease in presenting Odessa's candidacy as the seat for the'International Expo 2030 competing with the capital of Saudi Arabia Ryad, with the Korean city Busan and with Rome.
Expo 2030 and the history of Rome's candidacy
In other words, anything seemed possible. Then also Rome, a city of art and thousand-year-old culture, guardian of Western values and rights universally recognized as a world heritage site but where tourists witness every day in dismay as waste disposal is contracted out to wild boars and seagulls and where urban transport is a chimera, it could right to play the card of venue candidacy for Expo 2030. Roman entrepreneurs (from construction to defense and aerospace technologies in the Tiburtina valley) saw that deadline a golden opportunity for the relaunch of their sectors. They knew very little about the complex procedures for assigning the Expo venue. The same five-star mayor at the time leading the Capitol, Virginia Raggi, who had also wrecked Rome's candidacy for the 2024 Olympics (then assigned to Paris), had changed her mind for the Expo and was convinced of the advantages of entering the race. Then it was the turn of politics and diplomacy with all that entails. The candidates to succeed Raggi signed a document in which they committed to continuing their candidacy if elected. He placed the final seal Prime Minister Mario Draghi with official letter to the Bie to nominate Rome.
At that point the small work unit set up by Scognamiglio and Unindustria took off with the presidency of the promoting committee entrusted to a long-time ambassador such as Giampiero Massolo, former secretary general of the Farnesina, head of the DIS secret services and then president of ISPI and Fincantieri.
It is said that the “forced cohabitation” between Scognamiglio (director of the committee) and Massolo (president) was not always so serene and characterized by total fair play but the other 181 members of the Bie will not even have noticed this. What mattered most was the work of a first level team composed of diplomats in service (Sem Fabrizi and Fabio Sokolovich) and retired (Sebastiano Cardi and Antonio Bernardini) in the offices of Rome and those of Paris made available by the mayor Hidalgo al Marais to adequately brief the representatives of the other countries on the strengths of the our candidacy and forge alliances with variable geometry to be implemented depending on the changes facing us.
The Expo 2030 project in Rome
Business breakfasts and dinners took place at a rapid pace all over the world, Christmas trips (like that of Mayor Gualtieri to Cuba) transformed into a showcase to support Rome's candidacy. Same last one Prime Minister Meloni's meeting at the White House with President Joe Biden ended with the request for an endorsement for Rome.
Everything had been done properly. The venue for the Expo was located in an area south of the capital near the Autostrada del Sole, the undisputed kingdom of the Casamonica family, home to a great unfinished work for the swimming world championships with the skeleton of Calatrava's sail. It was like putting the emphasis on a past to be rewritten, giving strength to the desire for modernization and rebirth, focusing on that urban regeneration which is the theme of the Expo made of environmental sustainability and zero impact.
In short, everything was following the well-tested rules of the best tradition of the Italian System when it was put to the test for an international event of that magnitude. An ad hoc law had financed the candidacy. The Foreign Affairs club (of which Scognamiglio had become president in the meantime) was transformed into a logistical hub for all events linked to the candidacy (not without some complaints from members involved in normal sporting activities). The project was entrusted to a Piedmontese star architect who grew up in MIT in Boston and is appreciated throughout the world as Carlo Ratti, highly courted (unsuccessfully) by the Saudis themselves. The conditions for entering the race were therefore all there.
The three-way challenge for Expo 2030
Of course, the situation was very different from that of Milan in 2015 when Letizia Moratti herself contributed from her own pocket to the expenses for travel and lobbying actions. But the challenge was still within our reach. Then, the Ukrainian crisis, the inevitable exit of Odessa despite all Zelensky's attempts to maintain the candidacy, narrowed the contenders to three Ryad, Rome and Busan. The latter, although supported by over 30 favorable votes from Asians and equipped with an ambitious project presented well in advance by the Government of South Korea, even sponsored by the former secretary of the United Nations Ban ki Moon, had to surrender to a inevitable defeat due to the fact that it is very difficult for Bie to assign two venues in a row on the same continent after the Expo will be held in Osaka, Japan in 2025.
Expo 2030 in Ryad
Since October the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has further shuffled the cards. Many believed they would see Ryad's prices drop at that point precisely because of the new instability that was taking place throughout the region. But the support for the candidacy of important countries such as France and the country's boundless financial capacity prevailed.
Today there is little point in complaining or appealing (as supported by Ambassador Massolo) to a greater awareness of the international community which should increasingly privilege rights and values over the strength of "petrodollars". He is sorry to find every international event planted in the desert dunes. Yet it has already been like this for some time: in recent years the countries of the Persian Gulf between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 they saw the 2020 Dubai Expo postponed by a year due to Covid and in December 2022 the football World Cup was held in Qatar. The 2034 World Cup will instead be played in Saudi Arabia. In short, for now, petrodollars are winning.
