Maybe because geography still makes it today, as in ancient times, the city-crossroads between East and West, the gravitational center of Mediterranean. It may be because all the roads of diplomacy pass through here, through the Eternal City. Or for the burden and honor of protecting and defending a City-State kept in its womb, the Vatican, and its white-clad tenant. Rome and security, an inseparable combination. More than any other European city, the capital bears the responsibility of being the guarantor and promoter of a culture of safety and of putting it into practice.
Security of citizens, of institutions, of the many world-class companies that find fertile ground to grow here, of the dense network of embassies that make Rome the largest felucca headquarters in the world. And at the same time geopolitics: the military bases, the gaze on the Mediterranean and the privileged perspective on the quadrants where the fate of the international community is decided today, from Africa to the Middle East. Is he up to the challenge? The question arises as a big test approaches for the capital.
Under the spotlight of the world
That Jubilee which from next year will focus the world’s spotlight on the City and here, among the large arteries and cobblestone-paved alleys of the center, millions of pilgrims will flock towards St. Peter’s. But upon closer inspection, the spotlight is already on the capital of a country that this year assumed the rotating presidency of the G7, the club of the great Western nations. There is a sad disproportion between the right ambition of a city that has the history and the means to accredit itself as a bastion of safety European Union and the image it often gives of itself. On the one hand, the safety perceived by those who live there is always lower than what the data shows and not without good reasons. Petty crime, the hardships of the suburbs and central areas invaded by corrosive tourism, public disservices and the feeling of a certain institutional laxity. Problems amplified by a media and social media narrative that is often merciless, bordering on morbidity. On the other hand, the recurring, Tafazzian temptation to give up major events, the international occasions that exalt and relaunch Rome. Fortunately, it doesn’t always go like this, and the great work to equip the city for a global event like the Jubilee proves it.
The interventions on traffic, the Pnrr funds which have hit the ground here much more than elsewhere. Well, safety is one of the keys to the relaunch of this great city. Geopolitics has been said. It is a unique case, every state in the world has at least four embassies in Rome: Italy, Holy See, UN, Sovereign Order of Malta. Added to the diplomatic representations are the non-governmental organisations, 337 offices located in the capital, the reason for a continuous coming and going of delegations from all over the world, summits and conferences. An institutional presence certified by the record number of sensitive targets subjected to special monitoring by our police forces in the prevention and fight against radicalization and terrorism. All this contributes to Rome’s specific weight in international dynamics.
It is a centrality that makes the city the headquarters of many delicate missions abroad of which Italy is at the helm. Especially in the Mediterranean, of which it is a privileged observatory. Among the latest, the operation to guarantee the safety of European cargo ships crossing the Red Sea and the Suez passage, threatened by attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels. Italy was entrusted with the tactical command of the mission. In Rome, the coordination of naval maneuvers that thousands of kilometers away defend our commercial interests and a port economy that is the driving force of central and southern Italy. And again, from the operations center of Santa Rosa, on the Lazio coast, the Italian Navy and the police forces help to provide allied countries with delicate information on the movements of military ships and submarines of rival states off the coast of Europe, they monitor the security of Subsea connectivity infrastructures, monitor and help prevent human trafficking from the African and Eastern route. In recent months there has been discussion again about a single center for the control of migratory routes from Rome and who knows whether it will be possible to achieve it, assuming that the crossed vetoes are put aside.
We can go on for a long time. Linger on the image, which has fully entered the literary genre, of Rome “city of spies”. There is some truth, and not only because the main headquarters of the Italian 007s reside here, now reunited under the same roof in Piazza Dante, the “Langley” of our home. Since the 1990s, when the Wall collapsed, Rome has earned this title by taking it from Vienna, the city on the border of the Curtain made famous by Graham Green’s spy stories. Today it is not difficult for an indiscreet eye to spot long tables of foreign diners, set up in well-known Roman trattorias, from the center to Parioli up to Testaccio, intent on exchanging greetings and information.
The “Tiburtina Valley” excellence
Then there is the other side of the coin, the private sector and a security sector which in Rome more than anywhere else in the country finds fertile ground for growth and investment. It is a case in point, beyond the ring road, the “Tiburtina Valley” which brings together the headquarters of the most important companies in the area Defence in the world, some Roman doc. From Elettronica to Leonardo and Thales Alenia Space, up to the Rheinmetall factories. An industrial lung that generates related industries and jobs and in this sad historical situation – with the Russian war in Ukraine forcing Europe and our country to invest more in the sector – it puts Rome back at the center of the map, making it a center crucial for the processing of military equipment that allows Ukraine to defend itself from Moscow’s aggression and demonstrates Italy’s factual and not just rhetorical commitment alongside its allies.
Institutions, businesses, diplomacy and intelligence. All the ingredients are there to make Rome the Capital of European Security. To demonstrate, especially on the occasion of the Jubilee and major international events, that this city is up to the role that history and geography gave it many centuries ago.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
