“THE EXPO OF IDEAS": THE ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER RENZI SAID, "THE EXPO WILL BE THE TEST FOR ITALY’S AMBITIONS". "ITALY MUST WIN ITS EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL BET AND VALORIZE THE MEANING OF FOOD" AND, "EXPO IS NOT JUST A SHOW"

Expo is "an opportunity for our country to get back to being a healthy carrier of hope and enthusiasm", said the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at "The Expo of Ideas", in Milan today, calling for "a common effort for the Charter of Milan", and he added, "we have focused our efforts not only on the fundamental question of food and the ability to feed the world".

"A year ago, the synonym for Expo was the word scandal, sometimes unjustifiably so, because many things were working well. Therefore, I am grateful to those who were able to turn this event into an opportunity. But it is not enough just to exchange the word scandal for the word opportunity. We need to be even better and transform the keyword of Expo into identity”.

The Prime Minister continued, “Expo will be the key test of Italy’s great ambitions. Identity is the sign of what Italy is and if Italy does its job well, it will come out on top”. Renzi hopes that the Expo will be "not only an event, a meeting, an exhibition. We are not a catering company or event organizers. The Expo will show what Italy will be like in the coming years”.

Renzi also said, “The Expo should be an opportunity to fight injustice because if politics stops fighting injustice, then it is a mere organization”, recalling the Pope's message on the Expo challenge. "We need to win the educational and cultural bet to valorize the deeper meaning of choices in the food field”.

The Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, then thanked the former mayor of Milan, Letizia Moratti, “for her efforts in the assignment of the Expo”, as well as thanks “to the Expo Commissioner Giuseppe Sala, the whole team and, of course, in particular, to the Anac and Raffaele Cantone, who managed to turn this event into an opportunity”.