<25> Belgrade, Serbia has been elected as the host for the 2027 Specialised Expo!

172nd BIE General Assembly

The 172nd General Assembly of the BIE was held on June 20-21, 2023 (Wednesday).

BIE stands for Bureau International des Expositions, an international organization headquartered in Paris where all matters related to international expositions are decided. Of course, Japan is also a member country. By the way, Japan joined the BIE in 1965, five years before the 1970 Osaka Expo.

The 172nd BIE General Assembly was attended by 179 BIE member states.

If you check the BIE website, there are currently 179 member countries, so all member countries have participated. By the way, as of March 2022 last year, 170 countries were members, so the number of countries has increased by 9 over the past year.

BIEのロゴ
The Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) logo.svg

Well, the agenda for this meeting was as follows:

(The following information is based on the BIE official website)

1. Progress report on future expositions
2. Presentations by Candidates for World Expo 2030
3. Elections for the sites of the 2027/28 specialised expos
   

1. Progress report on future expositions

There were direction updates from the four committees of the BIE (the Administration and Budget Committee, the Executive Committee, the Rules Committee, and the Information and Communication Committee).

Also, the latest information was reported from the Organizers of World Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai.

Mr. Haneda Koji, the Commissioner General of the Expo Ambassador, reported that 153 countries and five international organizations have announced their participation so far.

In addition, Secretary-General of the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, Mr. Ishige Hiroyuki introduced several international pavilions and reported on the progress of the venue.

2. Presentations by Candidates for the 2030 World Expo (Registered Expo)

This is what I paid particular attention to.

As I introduced in the blog “<4> Thinking about the World Expo on the news of ‘Finland joining NATO’” the other day, as for the right to host the 2030 World Expo (Registered Expo, a large-scale expo once every five years. 2030 Expo will be the next World Expo of the 2025), five countries initially raised their hands, and a fierce bidding fight was unfolding.

The five countries were Russia (host city : Moscow), South Korea (Pusan), Italy (Rome), Ukraine (Odesa), and Saudi Arabia (Riyadh).

As we all know, on February 24, 2022, Russia began its invasion to Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine were candidates to host the 2030 World Expo.

The war has dragged on and is still going on. A ceasefire is desired as soon as possible.

On May 23, 2022, three months after the start of Russia’s invasion to Ukraine, BIE announced that Russia had decided to voluntarily withdraw its candidacy for the 2030 World Expo.

However, Ukraine was still bidding.

The BIE sends a BIE Enquiry Mission to the countries and cities that are running for election. The study team confirms the preparation status of the candidate site and checks whether the expo meets the regulations and is feasible from the BIE’s point of view.

A BIE delegation arrived in Ukraine (host city is Odesa) in March. The delegation sent to Ukraine was led by the President of the Rules Committee, Aldwin Dekkers. Of course, BIE also sent Enquiry Mission to South Korea (Pusan), Italy (Rome), and Saudi Arabia (Riyadh).

At the BIE General Assembly this time, it was announced that three candidate sites would continue to be considered as a result of voting.

The three countries (three cities) were South Korea (Pusan), Italy (Rome), and Saudi Arabia (Riyadh).

Although not mentioned in the BIE announcement, Ukraine (Odesa) was removed.

After all, it may have been judged that it would be difficult to organize a World Expo during the war.

By the way, the remaining three countries’ plans for the World Expo are as follows.

The venue for the 2030 World Expo will be selected by secret ballot based on the principle of one country, one vote, at the 173rd BIE General Assembly to be held in November 2023 this year.

At the 172nd BIE General Assembly, each of these three candidates gave a presentation on their project.

Fom Saudi Arabia, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, H.H. Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, from South Korea, the President of the Republic of Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, and from Italy, President of the Council of Ministers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni took the podium.

South Korea seems to put in the effort that President Yoon himself took the podium.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to November.

Elections for the site of the 2027/28 Specialised Expo

Well, this is the main dish for this time.

A “Specialised Expo” is a small exposition with a specialized theme that is permitted to be held only once during two large-scale “World Expos“, which are held once every five years.

Specifically, the exhibition period is limited to a maximum of 3 months (6 months for World Expos) and the venue area is limited to 25 hectares (no restrictions for World Expos). All pavilions will be provided by the organizers, and pavilion spaces will be provided to participating countries.

The most recent “Specialised Expo” was the 2017 Specialised Expo held in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana (now renamed Nur-Sultan). The Astana Expo was held under the theme of “Future Energy” and was attended by about 4 million people.

Japan also exhibited a pavilion with the theme of “Smart Mix with Technology – All Japan’s Experiences and Challenges -“, which was visited by 730,000 people.

By the way, five countries/cities were running as candidates for the 2027/28 World Expo.

The five countries are as follows.

At the 172nd General Assembly of the BIE, on June 21st, voting was held after presentations by each country.

Voting was by secret ballot using electronic balloting, based on the principle of one country, one vote for member states.

Also, you need to win “two-thirds majority” to be elected.

If no country receives the required “two-thirds”, a second round of voting is held, eliminating the country with the lowest number of votes. And so on.

This time, no country received two-thirds of the vote in the first three rounds, so a runoff was held for the top two. After all, there were four votes this time.

The results of each vote are as follows.

<Results of the first round>
USA – 19
Thailand – 16
Serbia – 54
Spain – 42
Argentina – 8
Abstention – 1

<Results of the second round>
USA – 21
Thailand – 15
Serbia – 69
Spain – 48
Abstention – 1

<Results of the 3rd round>
USA – 23
Serbia – 74
Spain – 53
Abstention – 2

<4th Round Results>
Serbia – 81
Spain – 70
Abstain – 3

As you can see, the 172nd BIE General Assembly elected Serbia (Belgrade) after four rounds of voting.

セルビアの国旗
National Flag of Serbia

Personally, my focus was on America.

America was the Mecca of World Expo

Speaking of the United States, it can be said that it is a mecca of world expositions along with France, which has been involved in the great world expositions such as the New York World’s Fair and the Chicago World’s Fair. In fact, however, the relationship between the United States and the Expo has had many twists and turns until recently. I want to look back on that area.

In the latter half of the 19th century, the United States hosted three World’s Fairs, including New York in 1853-54, Philadelphia in 1876, and Chicago in 1893. In the 20th century, Buffalo 1901, St. Louis 1904, Portland 1905, San Francisco 1915, Philadelphia 1926, Chicago 1933/34, San Francisco 1939/40, New York 1939/40, Seattle 1962, 1964. / 1965 New York, 1968 San Antonio, 1974 Spokane, 1982 Knoxville, 1984 New Orleans and many other World’s Fairs have been held. In the 20th century, it can be said that the world expositions were dominated by the United States.

America withdrew from the BIE in 2001!

However, since 1984, the United States has not held an Expo.
What happened?
Furthermore, on April 27, 2001, the United States withdrew from the BIE Convention (Convention on International Exhibitions), which it had joined on May 24, 1968.
The mecca of the 20th Century World Expo, the United States, had withdrawn from the BIE.
As a result, no other World Expo was held in the United States after that, and the involvement of the United States in World Expos was limited to exhibiting its pavilion at World Expositions held in other countries.

However, after many twists and turns (for details, please refer to my book, “Expo 100 Stories 1851-2025 “, episodes 80 and 81), on May 10, 2017, the United States returned to the BIE.

Immediately after that, at the BIE General Assembly on June 14, 2017, Minnesota in the United States raised its hand to hold a “Specialised Expo” to be held in 2022/23.

Poland’s Lodz and Argentina’s Buenos Aires were also candidates to host this year’s Specialised Expo, but in the end, at the General Assembly of the BIE on November 15, 2017, Buenos Aires, which was scheduled to be held in 2023, was elected. After about 40 years since 1984 New Orleans World Expo, the World Expo held in the United States ended in a dream. (After that, this Buenos Aires Expo was also withdrawn due to the change of government in Argentina in 2019).

And the second try after returning to BIE was the candidacy for the 2027 Specialised Expo this time.

The venue was Minnesota, just like last time.

The United States was the first to submit an application to the BIE ahead of other countries.
It was July 29, 2021.
Under the BIE regulations, the deadline is exactly six months after the first candidature, so this time the deadline was 5:00 pm CET on January 28, 2022.

The United States had been the only candidate for a long time, but in 2022, Thailand applied on January 11th, Serbia on January 25th, Spain on January 26th, and Argentina on January 27th.
Submissions of documents and applications just before the deadline came one after another, and when the deadline approached, it became a fierce battle with five countries competing.

This is the second challenge for the United States since its return to the BIE, and this time it was the first to run as a candidate, so, personally, I thought that they were perfectly prepared for the voting.

However, looking at the history of the vote, it is considerably weak, being the third from the first vote. Although they made it to the third round, they fell far short of Seville and Spain.

I’m worried that the US will become passive about the BIE and the World Expo movement because of this, but I would like to somehow see a great World Expo, or World’s Fair in the US during my lifetime.