Mr Secretary General, Mr President of the General Assembly, dear delegates, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon to all of you.

First of all I want to wish the best of luck to Riyadh and Busan for their candidatures, and I want to bring a warm thank to my colleagues who have just spoken, the Promoting Committee, the testimonials who have shared their experiences, the young Gaia! 

I am truly honoured to be here today to convey to you how much Italy, Italians - all of us - believe in the candidature of Rome to host the Expo 2030. It is a challenge that our Nation, at all levels, is pursuing with great enthusiasm.

I am thrilled to be here to talk to you about Rome. It is the eternal city, it is the Capital of Italy, it is the city where I was born. A fundamental part of my deep-rooted identity, and identity is indeed the most precious thing that belongs to each and every one of us. 

For this reason, and many more, I hope to be successful, in this difficult and exciting task that I have today: to convince you. To convince you to choose Italy, Rome, to host the World Expo in 2030, the year in which we will assess the results of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The year which will mark the centenary of the Bureau International des Expositions.

I could speak about what Rome has represented in the past and what it represents today.

I could tell you that it is the universal city by excellence, the first megalopolis in history, that has lived, and continues to live by constantly regenerating itself.

I could remind you that Rome is the capital of dialogue among the great monotheistic religions; that it is home to dozens of international organizations; that it is a global city and has been so for thousands of years. 

I could reiterate that it is a capital of culture, one of the world’s biggest university hubs and home to the largest university in Europe as well as to cutting-edge research and technology centers. A city with an ancient heart, that beats to the rhythm of history - a history in which it has been and is an absolute key player.

But what I am going to tell you instead, is that these specific characteristics, the combination of ancient roots and technological modernity, are the ones that inspired our project and give substance to our proposal. We believe that, since its beginnings, the World Expo has always been much more than a world exhibition: it is the story of an era and the imaginary design of the next. Expos chart a course and Rome intends to do the very same.

“People and Territories: Regeneration, Inclusion and Innovation” is the theme of the Rome Expo. It means people and their rights at its heart, integrating with their surrounding environment.

Sustainability, lasting partnerships between Nations, responsible and inclusive cooperation with the most vulnerable, an ambitious legacy of progress for the international community. These are the cornerstones of our project. These are the reasons to choose Rome. 

We are proposing to all our partners to show together that it is possible to build a larger scale project without spoiling the land. This is why our exhibition site will be innovative and completely sustainable: it will be the largest solar park ever to be built in a city. Each pavilion will produce clean energy, feeding into the shared grid.

We are proposing that Nations work together on concrete projects until 2030, to demonstrate how the international community can grow by working together in the collective interest. I am referring to lasting and sustainable partnerships.

In Rome, every Nation will find its own space, as an equal among equals, and has the chance to showcase its identity. No matter how big or small you may be, in Rome we know that everyone has something unique to offer and we want them to contribute on a level playing field. In our view, this is the essence of a responsible and inclusive cooperation. This is why we are ready to take action to ensure equal opportunities, also from a financial standpoint, for the widest possible participation in our World Expo.

Furthermore, the Rome Expo will not end after its six-month display. The pavilions will remain available to all Nations who request it, to enable them to keep a representation of themselves, to establish research and technology centers, to preserve a window of dialogue.

Our legacy, the legacy of the World Expo in Italy, aims to build a pathway to progress for the international community; to show our goals for the millennium can be achieved, that they are not just words and that the relationship between people and their environment can be really improved by working together.

Choosing to host World Expo 2030 in Rome means choosing all of this. 

One of the most intellectual minds of all time, Wolfgang Goethe, wrote that, in Rome, “the entire history of the world is interwoven”.

Choose Rome, let’s bring together history in the future!

Ci vediamo a Roma! Grazie.