Milan--The site is far from finished, it has been plagued by corruption scandals, and fears of violent protests were exacerbated Thursday on the eve of the inauguration.
Yet somehow Expo Milan 2015, the first world fair since Shanghai five years ago, will open its doors to the world Friday with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi insisting everything is going to be just fine.
As frantic round-the clock preparations continued right up to the last minute, all the signs were that the made-to-measure 110-hectare site on the outskirts of Italy's economic capital would be some way from being completed in time for Friday's grand opening.
The 2.5-billion-euro ($2.8 billion) project has been beset by corruption scandals, which have contributed to the delays, and by fears the Expo itself could be the target of violent demonstrations by opponents who say the massively indebted Italian state should not be ploughing money into an ephemeral event at a time of economic hardship.
Such fears rose on the eve of the opening when a few dozen masked protestors attempted to spraypaint and smash the windows of a branch of Manpower, an employment agency that is one of the official partners of the Expo, on the sidelines of a march against the event by several hundred students.
Renzi inherited the job of hosting the Expo from his predecessors but the youthful premier has embraced it as an opportunity for Italy to present itself as a confident, creative country that is facing up to its problems and acting to address them.
"We are ready for the Expo. Finally," Renzi said this week. "It could be better, it could have been held somewhere else and it could have been ready earlier: in these final hours I have heard many criticisms, which is fair.
AFP
