Franciscus Cornelis Gerardus Maria for everyone is Frans Timmermans. Brusque Dutch, inveterate pro-European, in love with windmills, obsessed with wind turbines to be placed everywhere. Ursula Von der Leyen, the first woman of Europe, chose him as her executive deputy, or the effective number two of Brussels. His mandate in the European Commission is the heaviest: the Green Deal and European Commissioner for Climate Action. He, Timmermans, is the ecological transition itself.
The Dutch of Europe
A powerful European, socialist and northerner, polyglot, but above all Dutch. International relations are his pedigree. Unfazed, she speaks six languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and even Russian. To understand who we are talking about, a simple reference to his curriculum vitae is enough: in 1986 he was enlisted in the Royal Netherlands Army as a private first class for the Dutch military intelligence and security service and as a "Russian" interrogator of prisoners of war .
Beware of Timmermans
The question is legitimate: what does Timmermans have to do with Sos Enattos, with the Lula mine, with the Sardinian dream of bringing the Einstein Telescope to the Nuraghi Island, with the Gomoretta wind turbines? It has to do with it. Indeed, in the chessboard of choices it is he who could make the difference. Ursula's alter ego, however, knows it well, or should know it: in Europe, the interests of 27 states are, or should be. General interest, they call them. In reality, however, this is not always the case. The man of the windmills, the Dutch ones, knows perfectly what the Einstein Telescope is, knows like few others the game at stake for attributing it to Italy, therefore to Sardinia, or to the Limburg triangle, the Euroregion for excellence, positioned as if by a geopolitical miracle between Holland, its Holland, Germany and Belgium.
Enough chatter
He is so aware of it that, enough talk, in recent days, without moving too much from home, he has rushed, with the institutional excuse of an insignificant provincial conference, to the headquarters of the Einstein Telescope, the one designed for the inter-European crossing , in the Limburg Region, a part Dutch, part Belgian, part German land. A ready-to-use triangle of the Netherlands, with the strength of three states all lined up in no uncertain terms in support of the enterprise: snatching with the power of politics and money, with the efficiency and cohesion of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands , the scientific dream cultivated on the slopes of Mont'Albo, in the heart of Barbagia. The powerful machine of the Euroregion advances like a veritable orange army, sparing no expense and with the determination of those who, on the altar of the Einstein Telescope, are ready to sacrifice any environmentalist dogma, such as that of modern windmills.
Frans' wind renunciation
Asking Timmermans to give up wind turbines is like asking a hunter to give up his rifle. Yet, the man of the ecological transition, in recent days has pronounced the fateful no, the one for the windmills in southern Limburg, precisely where the northern European universities would like to build the Einstein Telescope, the one in tulip and kartoffen sauce.
The Limburg bible
His words spoken during the stealthy visit to his homeland have already become Frans' bible: "If Limburg's interest in the Einstein telescope surpasses those wind turbines, then it must prevail". When Ursula's deputy enters the entrance to the ET Pathfinder headquarters, a mega preparatory structure for the experiments to be carried out in the bowels of the earth, he knows perfectly well what he has to say. And they won't be half words. His is a seal with the trappings that are difficult to reconcile with the impartiality of a European commissioner, even an executive vice president.
Golden Judgment
His is a sentence: «The Euroregion has the gold in its hands with the Einstein telescope». Frans is not limited, his enthusiasm is that of a fan: «The facilities and environment for scientists here are in very good order and the infrastructure is good. I am very impressed with the Einstein telescope and will support this region which has gold in its hands from Europe. There is worldwide demand for this technology. Even the ET Pathfinder is already a unique piece of science worldwide."
Word of Frans
Words of Frans Timmermans, the wind pro-European who out of the blue turns into the number one enemy of the blades and the wind, but at home, with the declared will to support that "cosmic" project to be carried out in that plain land, peat and marl on the border between mighty Germany, diplomatic Belgium and the northern outpost of Holland. An explicit support as inappropriate as it is surreal. A behavior that Italy not only does not contest, but which ends up endorsing with delays and nefarious choices such as those of the authorized wind turbines on the peaks of Sos Enattos.
Dutch without shovels
The Dutch, however, wasted no time: wind farms, which even someone wanted to plant on those lands, canceled forever, complete with a European seal. To endorse, for rationality and intelligence, the choice to say no to the wind turbines to be positioned above the planned Einstein Telescope is precisely the number one of the European green policy.
Italian dreams
In Italy, in Sardinia, on the other hand, people are still asleep, straddling the business of the multinational wind farms in Sardinia and the complicity of the Roman palaces that shamelessly pursue state-colony-style impositions. In fact, in the nation that has never woken up, private interests continue to prevail to the detriment of public ones. The Draghi government, last October, not caring about judges and municipalities, common sense and respect for the environment, had managed to overcome all logic.
Suicide decree
With a decree from Palazzo Chigi he had decided to impose on the head of Sos Enattos, the Lula mine destined to house the Einstein Telescope, a wind farm, that of Gomoretta, capable of liquidating in one fell swoop the ambition of realizing on earth an exciting scientific and technological park capable of leading, from the heart of the Mediterranean, one of the most ambitious cosmic challenges in the world. In Limburg ministers and the European commissioner for ecological transition take decisions to ban any wind interference with the Einstein Telescope, in Italy a decree is issued, which no one has yet revoked, to drive wind turbines into the cosmic silence of Sos Enattos. In the land of tulips, however, they have not limited themselves to stopping the wind turbines "manu militari", but have set up a 360-degree diplomatic, scientific, operational and strategic economic action. Stefan Hild, professor of experimental physics at the University of Maastricht and project leader of Einstein Telescope, when addressing the audience of Timmermans and his companions does not neglect the "magic" of gravitational waves, but does not disdain to recall that 25 universities in 7 countries are already collaborating within ET Pathfinder. Unaware of the enemy ears in the room, he lets slip: "There is considerable interest from Japan and the United States in our work." They work headlong in this northern European outpost. The laboratory is NASA stuff, you enter in overalls and gloves, you move only after a sip order.
NASA in Limburg
The equipment is already trimmed, gigantic and experimental, general rehearsals of what will have to happen in the basements of the cosmic future, that of Limburg or that of the Island of Sardinia. There is certainly a buzzing activity here. The entire area identified in that cosmic triangle is x-rayed millimeter by millimetre. A marching column of three massive, purpose-built trucks measure hertz, ground transmissions, and radar reflections. First line up around the perimeter of the area and then inside it. Probes, on the other hand, drill everywhere. Radar and control units in every hole. The objective is first of all the scientific evaluation. They, the Germans, the Dutch and the Belgians know that the challenge with Lula's cosmic silence is difficult, perhaps impossible, but they will try not to get too far behind even on that side. They know perfectly well that not all the parameters proposed to the scientific community will be the best, but they will play the offer mix card. The cards on the table are not insignificant: ultra-modern laboratories that are already highly advanced and a network of companies that has wasted no time. For a year now, an Interreg cross-border plan involving the three countries has set up a sort of large training project for all the companies in the area, with the mission of being ready to provide the Einstein Telescope project with everything what is needed, from shipbuilding to scientific professionalism. In short, a total bet, without delay. The ministers of the three states wasted no time.
The Bonn plan
At the end of last year, in the heart of Germany's institutional capital, in Bonn, they officially signed a pact of action. The most competent, theoretical physicist Robert Dijkgraaf, Dutch minister of culture and scientific research, speaks for all: «The Einstein telescope is a fantastic project. For science, but certainly also for the border region between Limburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Flanders and Wallonia. Today in Bonn we agreed to take the next big step." Italy, meanwhile, has not yet advanced its official candidacy. The wind turbines, the Anglo-Spanish ones, for now, loom like an epitaph on the deep and silent bowels of Sos Enattos.
