XFEL Power Horse Trading

The well-covered fusion test reactor ITER (to be build in Cadarache, France) will cost 5 billion euros, the little known X-ray light source for materials research XFEL (to be build near Hamburg, Germany) will cost 1 billion euros, and is pending. Obviously, it's a mismatch in horse trading on the science policy scene, reports Christian Schwägerl in FAZ (23.1.2007): Germany voted for ITER in France, but now France is reluctant to pay for the X-ray source in Germany. An example for European cooperation? Well, Schwägerl hopes that Germanys chancellor and most senior physicist Angela Merkel will put things straight at a meeting with French president Jacques Chirac this month.