Let's talk about Northvolt with Cecilia Trasi

In this episode of Geoeconomic Competition, Francesca Ghiretti talks with Cecilia Trasi, Research Analyst at Bruegel. The episode analyses the case of Swedish battery manufacturing Northvolt. Why it was/is the big European hope in battery manufacturing? What led it to file for bankruptcy? What can Europe learn from this?

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SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Geoeconomic Competition. I'm Francesca Giretti, your host, and in every episode I dive into the intricacies of geoeconomics with other experts. Now, I've been away a little bit longer than I had planned to, but December was a little bit crazy. I hope you will forgive me. I will record this episode and then I'll record another episode to do a bit of a recap of what happened or what happened in 2024. Today, however, we're gonna talk about Northwald. If you don't know what North Vault is, I suppose the best way to describe it is what the best herb uh the EU had at manufacturing batteries. And perhaps this is a little bit unfair because there are other companies out there and we'll be talking about them. But what was special about Northwald, these battery manufacturing um startupslash scale up based in Sweden is that it aimed to capture 25% of Europe's battery market by 2030. It had institutional support from the European Investment Bank, the European Union, and the German government as well. It also attracted major private investors such as Volkswagen and Goldman Sachs. It had a 5 billion loan from the European Investment Bank, the Nordic Investment Bank, and 23 commercial lenders. It had major expansion plans, which included gigafactories in Sweden and Germany, a plant in Canada, and energy storage and recycling facilities in Poland, and 55 billion of secured orders and pre-orders from Volkswagen, BMW, and other card makers. And yet, a little while ago, Northworth filed for bankruptcy. So this is a very fascinating case, and everything that I read until now comes from an analysis published by Bruegel titled Northword Struggles: A Cautionary Tale for the Euclidean industrial sorry, the Euclideal Deal. And today with me I have one of the authors of this analysis, Tecilia Trassi, who is a research analyst at Bruegel. Welcome, Tecilia. Hello, thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. So I've just mentioned that you and your colleague Simone Taglia Pietra, this seems to be a heavily Italian episode, any Japanese, have published a very nice analysis about North Vault. And I guess that, you know, we touched, I touched upon it a little bit, and you touch heavily on it in the report. But why was, why is to a certain extent Northworld so important for the European Union? Is the only manufacturer? Are there other companies out there? Why so much attention on this one company?

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yes, hopefully, exactly as you said, first of all, um heavily Italian recording, hopefully the accent won't uh come out too strongly. Um to answer your question, so why is Norvolt so important? And uh, is it the only uh battery manufacturer in Europe? So the short answer is it is the most important one because it was the first European battery maker that became operational. And no, it is not the only one. So let me develop a little bit on this. So Norvolt is it was a little bit, it quickly became the poster child of the EU uh let's say green transition or green growth um efforts. Because in what in in only one company it managed to address two of the current challenges that Europe is facing. So not only the need to advance with its own uh green transition, but secondly is also to tackle uh let's say economic security concerns and reduce dependency on foreign actors, like for example, China. Um and uh it really embodied a lot again the green industrial, in the green industrialization hopes of uh of the EU. Um because not only was trying it it uh produced batteries, but also produced them on European soil and it was European-owned. So not only localization versus ownership was uh uh it was not only localization, it was also ownership, it was European. It was important as well because it managed to attract an unprecedented amount of investments, uh, both public and um and private. Um in fact, it received support from uh IPKIS, so the uh important project of common European interests, from matching aids, from the German government that was afraid of a flight of industry towards the US uh that where not a company like Norfolk would have benefited from the IRA. Um but also it attracted a lot of private investments, so Volkswagen, so a company currently struggling with its own transition towards a more electric model. Um was the first shareholder with 21% stake in the company. Goldman Sachs was the second one with 19% in uh stake in the company. This means that there was a lot of potential in Norfolk, so much so that Norfold aimed to achieve around 25% of the battery, European battery market. Um and it quickly had expansion plans all over. So not only in Sweden, where it started with the first plants with 16 gigawatt hours, but immediately, very soon after, it had plans to expand it to a uh 60 gigawatt hours capacity, then other plants in Canada, in Germany, uh other line of businesses. So it was the first company where a lot of the, let's say, the hopes were concentrated and where it seemed feasible, where it seemed like the uh the stars were aligned for Noble to succeed. Um you ask whether it was the only one. So it is not the only company in Europe doing, let's say, batteries uh on European soil. In fact, other European companies doing just that are, for example, Fercor in France, but with a much smaller capacity and is still under construction, so it's a 16 gigawatt hours. Um always in French, but operational is ACC. Also, their much smaller capacity is around 13 gigawatt hours. And then we have Power and Co. by Volkswagen in Germany and in Spain with around 40 gigawatt hours, but still they are under construction. The ones that are currently operational are much, much, much bigger. They're foreign-owned uh battery plants. So they would be, for example, SK Innovation in Hungary, Samsung SDI always in Hungary, uh, one is Chinese, the second one is Korean, and then another Korean one would be LG Energy in Poland. So it was incredible to have again a company that was European-owned, producing in Europe, giving the hopes of, let's say, that was powered by renewable energy and that would generally embody also the hope of green jobs. This was another thing that really was concentrated in Norfolk. It really gave the idea that it was possible to start an industry from the ground up. It was possible to um to give so to have this shift from let's say a more brown job economy to a one that where uh green jobs would flourish and would attract capital and uh um yeah, would succeed. Unfortunately, this is not exactly how it happened, however. Okay, perfect.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

So what went wrong?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Many things. Unfortunately, many things. Um possibly, so the first they say some of the first uh the first reasons why uh Norfolk did not turn out to be the again, this exactly was set out to be, um, was that it had severe operational problems that are really much related to how Norfolk was run um and um and yeah, problems that just compiled and slowed productions. And what I'm referring to here is first, so Norfolk was founded by two Tesla executives that were extremely ambitious. Um, and they definitely are very connected, very well aware of how to run a let's say a startup. Not necessarily, however, we're very well aware of how to run a startup in this particular sector. They were never the ones, you know, running a battery maker, battery manufacturers before. Um so lack of know-how, of managerial know-how was a big, a big, big, big reason why. Another thing that was a big reason why they failed was uh that it just became too big too soon, in the sense that it's it was great, they attracted so much capital. For example, the biggest loan ever, so five million, five billion uh dollars, uh biggest green loan ever in Europe. Um, but probably instead of expanding, right, to in new plants or new line of businesses, lines of business, sorry, like uh recycling or energy storage, despite the fact that this was definitely um, let's say there were complementary services, complementary goods to the ones that they were, in fact, producing, it would probably have been way better to just nail the production of batteries first rather than launching into, let's say, grand projects. Connected to this was also the fact that there was no in-house talent. Uh, and the reason for this is twofold. The first one is that they decided to build the factory in an era where there was no, let's say, um, grown talent yet in this particular area. So they decided for the north of Sweden because of the availability of very cheap renewable energy, in particular hydropower. Um, they were not the first ones, they were not the only ones. For example, Meta has a big data center, I think just an hour and a half away from where the first plant of Novolt was uh was built. But however, still they had to attract all the time from the rest of Sweden and from the rest of the world, where a lot of nationalities working on, let's say, on this plant, which sounds great, but at the same time creates problems, create inefficiencies. And if you don't have like a team that is working well together, and especially if you have some particular teams only working on, for example, operating machines that cannot really well communicate with the rest of the company. And I'm particularly here referring to the fact that the machines were mostly run, were mostly of Chinese origin and were mostly or Korean origin and were mostly uh run by Chinese or Korean uh workers, which per se there is there is nothing wrong with this per se, but just highlights the fact that there was no know-how, there were no ingrown technologies that they were using, and there were potential, and in fact, that's exactly what happened, there were multiple problems of coordination between the teams. Um related to this as well, by the way, was the fact that Norfolk, um, beyond, in a way, depending on uh, let's say Asian, let me use this, let's say very general term, Asian workers to run machines. And so, in a way, being dependent on precisely the actors where Europe is trying to kind of reduce the reliance on. Um, you also depended on the construction or let's say the provision of some very critical um components of these batteries. And I'm referring to this in particular in this, I'm referring particularly to the cathode materials, which is one of the main components of batteries. The reason why they at some point decided to resort to um, let's say the import of uh from China of this particular component is because they, in a way, like the orders could just not keep up with their production capacity. So they had to decide what to prioritize, whether the production of the single components of the batteries, or to just decide to assemble some of these components, for example, cathode material. Very simply because the cathode material that they produced was just of too low quality uh for it to work. Then another reason um always already protected to the plan was the fact that there were uh several death and uh let's say worker deaths, at least two, and then there were other on the work, on the let's say, um in the plants in particular. But then also other full workers' deaths that were um weirdly connected to Norfold. It's not really clear how, but still police investigation were ongoing, and then several injuries on the job. So, in other words, there were safety issues that were presented considerable challenges for the uh let's say the day-to-day operations of uh of the plants, and which of course overall slowed down the production of these main plants. Another issue as well was instead at the more um at the ownership level, if you want. And that was the fact that um there were conflicts over how, let's say, contrasting visions over how the company should be run or which direction it should take. Also among the shareholders. In fact, they there was a reported multiple times that uh two of the main shareholders that I mentioned, so Volkswagen and Goldman Sachs, had very clear different visions, and therefore, because of this, entered in conflict multiple times. Also, this is something that has to be uh kept in mind, you know, when trying to think of how to run a again a company that is promising but still fragile. And especially they still, up until 2023, and still had uh didn't produce, didn't deliver yet. So it had managed on one side to secure $55 billion in orders from the main uh car manufacturers, so BMW, Volkswagen, and all the companies that belong to the Volkswagen group, for example, uh Porsche, for example, or but also Scania and so on, but still did not deliver. And this is exactly what happened. So at some point, basically, some of these companies, some of the main, let's say, key partners or the key play other key players, uh grew frustrated, which means that probably the decline, the visible decline started when BMW uh cancelled the famous two billion orders to instead prefer uh to go for instead the provision um sorry for the supply of batteries to the Korean competitor, in particular Samsung SDI. Again, not because of a particular um again, affiliation to the Korean competitor, but it was just it's not it was just the say the production of Norval, the production plan of Norval just not deemed reliable at that point. Volkswagen talked about um, and actually even started, uh, writing off its stake, so the 21% stake in the company well before the um let's say the decline of uh of Norvold. For the entire 2024, they're already trying, not talking about writing off their stake. Finally, you had another company, for example, Volvo Cars, that decided to pull off the plans for a joint venture for an energy storage plant in Poland. So you see that there were several, let's say, fragilities that uh emerged, several frustrations that emerged that brought to um to put Norvold in a more fragile position. And this, of course, then shook the confidence of shareholders. This, of course, then hampered the ability of Norvold of raising further funds that would help Norvold navigate all of these, let's say, turbulences. Uh, in particular, very famously, the Swedish government always refused to intervene to save the company. And because of this, then uh, you know, in uh in that in a way, Norval finds itself in a dire strait and uh had to decide what to do. And possibly the smart decision at that point was to file for bankruptcy. Here it's important, Norval did not fail, so it did not go bust just yet. It filed for bankruptcy in the US. So it filed under the Chapter 11 in the US, which allows protection for companies that have a presence in the US, but also let's say foreign companies that have a presence in the US, uh, allows them to have access to a 45 million, uh, you think in particular number was 45 million dollars in a loan, I think. Um I would have to double check that actually. But um to basically just buy time to restructure the company, uh downsize the company, stop the expansion plans while maintaining its operations in the May plans in Germany and Sweden, running. Um but so basically to sum it up, Norfolk now uh had to try to face formidable challenges. A lot of them were probably inevitable. Some others were easily, could easily have been avoided with better management decisions. Um, and now it's uh yeah, in the on the lookout for uh, I would say buyers for its main assets and uh help to restructure its own uh business.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

So I guess that one way to sum up what you said is that there were a couple of challenges that perhaps were specific to the North World case, and that could include the need to import cathodes from China, um, the that's in and the injuries, so the safety concerns, and perhaps the fact that he grew too fast, too much, and all the hype around his growth. But there are also a number of challenges that we see very often in other startups, in other scale-ups, um, and that include the sort of lack of managerial know-how, because often startups are funded by people who are very technically knowledgeable and they know a lot about the technology, but they don't necessarily know how to manage a company, especially when it grows, right? So we see these over and over in startups, in scale-ups, that then when it comes to becoming established companies, they struggle. Um, and the second one will be the talent. We see these everywhere, right? So talent acquisition is extreme, it's an extremely challenging um task at the moment. And the last one is perhaps the issue of contrasting vision amongst shakeholders, right? Sorry, shareholders.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Shakeholders, what is shakeholders? But I like shakeholders. It gives the idea of like change makers, people are kind of disrupting the status quo. I guess that especially startuppers would like that as a term. What do you say?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

A shakeholders. Yes, I wonder IP on that one. Um so yeah, so let's come to the key, sort of the key point. We talked, we said that a few things are specific to Northwalk case, others are a little bit more general. And I think nobody, you definitely did it, but nobody can avoid thinking what are the lessons that we can learn from the Norfolk case for the general industrial policy of the European Union, but especially in the field of green technologies and green energy.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Um thank you for the question. I um I would say I think that the lessons for uh from the Norfolk case um can be summed up around three key points. Um and when I say the lessons are especially uh lessons for policymakers that are currently thinking of the European Clean Industrial Deal, which is going to be a plan that is going to outline not only the ambitions for green industrialization in Europe, but also the ways to implement these ambitions. And I think that the very first lessons that Norvold clearly highlights is that if you want to do innovation, then you need to be prepared for innovation, which means on one side, diversify as much as possible your, let's say, portfolio of ventures, which means bet on multiple companies. Um to an extent is something that happens, you know, uh in Europe, to an extent, however. The second one that is clearly that doesn't understand, uh, doesn't happen in Europe is a tolerance for failure. So when uh this is something that, for example, in the US, they have it very clear. So if companies raise a lot of capital, it's uh uh and especially if they are risky bet, and November was clearly an extremely risky bet, we're talking about a company in a sector that is relatively new uh for Europe, that uh in an area where it was not part of an industrial, let's say, cluster where there was a high concentration of knowledge, and where there were, let's say, again, shareholders that did not necessarily um could not necessarily easily integrate, let's say, in the um in the supply chain of this particular company, or have a particular specific knowledge of battery manufacturing. So that was a clearly a risky bet. If that would have possibly, okay, as a mental mental exercise or let's say thought exercise, let's think of Norval taking, let's say, as a story taking place in the US. If Norval would have taken place in the US, normally we would have been able to raise capital, as that happened in Europe, but also all of these strings attached to Norval would not have prevented this again, would have allowed companies to take risk without necessarily immediately putting in danger the uh the public finances of exposing to a great risk of losses, the German government would not have been uh, let's say, fingered, pointed at as now the crash story, the absolutely you know bass story of Europe. Like the conclusion would not have never have been Europe, you know, US, sorry, the US cannot do Korean industrialization. The conclusion would have been this was not. The right way to go. Instead, in Europe, our immediate conclusion was Europe is doomed. We cannot do this. We just have to rely on foreign actors going forward. We cannot do this. This is wrong. This is a wrong way of thinking. Because then all of a sudden it puts in danger then those other ventures that are active in the field that are trying to raise funds. And for example, so at the beginning I mentioned these other companies like Faircore, for example. Several of these companies are now fearing, let's say, a shareholder, not shakeholder, but a shareholder fright, that is going to just reduce capital influx in these companies. This shall not happen. Second lessons to be learned is that if we are, if you really are to pursue industrialization in areas where we have not done it yet, and in particular in areas where others have already done it, others like companies in China, companies in Korea, companies in Taiwan, companies in Japan, we shall not close the door of uh to this uh to this companies. This is not something that happens in uh in the Europe. So in all fairness, it's not we don't shut the doors as uh as Trump would do instead to foreign competition uh and especially to the investments of these foreign competitors. But there should be a better way of embracing uh the uh investments of foreign companies, in particular foreign companies that have a deep expertise in the technologies where we don't have it yet, in a way that we allow them possibly also to even have the ownership of a plan in a plant in exchange of the localization of the production and a sharing of the know-how and the technologies. Because it is obvious. I mean, the fact companies in China not only have been producing batteries for way longer than we have, but and and now they are they are the leaders in the production of batteries at the global level, but also leaders in the innovation, the state of innovation of these batteries, the leaders in RD for in these particular sectors. We cannot think of, we cannot think of ourselves as you know being able to catch up in all three hours, in all three areas by ourselves. So, in a way, in our in our report, we talk about the risk by embracing, which means if we want to the risk, in other words, if we want to reduce the reliance and the dependency on Chinese companies or in general, let's say foreign companies for the provision of critical technologies, so strategically important technologies like batteries, we should allow them to come, provide the right incentives, so access to our markets, and then, however, structure this, let's say, potential collaboration in a way that is convenient and or to use an expression is very common here in Brussels, is that in a way that allows for win-win partnerships and allows us not the time to catch up. The third big lesson here is that you cannot throw money at a company without the rights, um, without ensuring that this money are being thrown in the, let's say, in a fruitful, uh fertile context. And what I'm saying is Norfolk shows that the capital is there, that capital availability is there, the interest is there, uh, investor confidence, public and private, uh, is there, it's ready to bet on green ventures. It has attracted so something that very often um policymakers and company owners alike here in Brussels complain about is the lack of investments that we should invest more, we should do more, we should do more, which is definitely true. Um, however, Norfolk shows that even if the funding is available, if the right framework conditions are not in place yet, um, then it's extremely hard for companies to scale up. What I mean with this is that in uh if we don't have yet uh again the talent, as you mentioned before, but also a let's say capital market that can so fluid and is uh can move capital like in big, uh in big quantities, if I may, big flows as it happens in the US, or uh we don't have a clear direction over where we want to go, as it happens instead in China, then it's extremely hard for European companies to kind of figure out on their own how to go about it. Norfolk was important because Wells was also probably the first or the most feasible European project. Other companies like FECOR, they're instead very much a French project. It's going by itself. So if we're allowing, if we don't have the right European condition, the right European framework in place, then what happens is that member states decide to go by themselves, basically. And this is not exactly what you want. Very simply because you don't want comp you know member states with the biggest uh fiscal space to kind of being able to bet on uh their own, let's say, um green industrialization project, or you don't want other member states still with big fiscal spaces, just big space, to bet on incumbents just because they are very close to, let's say, uh they have very strong influence on policymakers. I'm not making any names, but I think we're all thinking the same country and the same kind of company. So to sum it up, I would say free lessons. So prepare for failure, so prepare for innovation if you want, the risk by embracing and investment must come with the right regulatory framework. Without them, then it's uh it's just a risky bet.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

You said win-win, and that is a very triggering word for me having worked having worked in China for many years on on the you know China topic for many years. Um when you say win-win agreements, I immediately uh triggered, interesting, and now Brussels is adopting this framework. Maybe one thing, and then we come to the last question, but maybe one thing that I would add is I suppose that one other thing that in Europe perhaps is lacking is the idea of continuous support. So it's almost as if Northworld had its chance, and as soon as there was a major obstacle or failure, then uh we disappear. And it's as if we know nothing about how companies who today are champions in different types of technologies have actually developed, right? So and they sometimes they manage to become what they are thanks to years and decades of support and billions in funding, right? Um, and we're thinking about how the lithography machine development has occurred, right? It took what 30 years to get to a proper commercialization, and also perhaps this point of there's a problem in the way we think about technological development and how we want to see results. And if these results don't materialize immediately in the way we had projected that they should have, then we say we cannot do it. We this this was the wrong bet. But was it really probably, maybe not necessarily?

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Um, it was probably, I mean, again, again, there when you're investing, you are you take bets. So sometimes it doesn't work out in the in the right way. You cannot control everything. Like here in Europe, we have a bit, I think, a tendency of trying to prepare for the worst through maybe regulation, but not necessarily then play along with experimentation. We just don't. Um and again, exactly as you said, right? So we don't we immediately get scared. I mean, we flural my studies, we get we get scared when uh um when when a lot of money or a lot of stakes are involved uh in a sector that we cannot yeah we cannot do. But also there, like just to show to show how it works, for example, to secure funding right now for these big uh ventures in uh in Europe. Normally, what you have to do in order, for example, to secure funding uh from European institutions, or also from national institutions under uh IPKI, so European uh funding schemes um or state aid schemes, you have to show ex ante how uh what is going to be your output, your output, um all the possible scenarios, how much you're going to need, um, and um and and it's really unclear how you know uh the the calculations, you know, uh calculation a company should make, what kind of scenarios they should they should include, um what exactly is the output is going to be desired in the end, is really unclear. So it's kind of left to the companies to just kind of prove that they are that they are in need of uh they are in need of state aid or in need of support. This is not something that instead happens, for example, in in the US under, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act. And the Inflation Reduction Act, what happens is that you have to kind of it's an ex post evaluation. So given a particular kind of output that is being produced and presented, then a company receives the financial support. This is much better because it allows companies to kind of chart their path. So given a few guardlays at the beginning, just a little, a few, let's say, good directions in the beginning, then companies are able to again innovate, to experiment, see what works and what doesn't. And there are, let's say, the nets, the safety nets in place uh for them in case the company doesn't work out well. This just doesn't happen, you know, this doesn't happen in uh in Europe, where instead we're kind of stuck with the state of what we know already. So a company will have to show that they are promising basis on what we already what we know what already works. And this doesn't uh this might work in established industries, but it just doesn't have it doesn't work in uh industries where you kind of have to invent, invent ways. You have to invent battery making in Europe if uh in the north of Sweden if no uh no other uh companies already doing it, especially not other companies that are let's say friend companies. So so yes, we definitely get scared.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Okay, so we painted a relatively uh judgmental picture of the innovation landscape in Europe. Let me ask the last question, which is so what's the path ahead? How do we proceed? What's the future of the battery manufacturing as well as green tech energy sector in in Europe?

SPEAKER_01 32:41

I wouldn't, so I'm not an expert in foresight, and uh nor I can see, let's say, the magic, the magic bowl and see how it's going to look like. But again, here in Europe, we are currently waiting for a clean industrial deal. Part of the clean industrial deal, uh, which uh as mentioned before is going to be again the uh the blueprint for green industrialization in Europe, um, will address exactly this. We'll address exactly how to support uh companies uh in uh say ventures that are trying to scale up, how to move from RD that we do so well, to mass markets. And um we'll see, we'll generally see. I hope that what is going to be there is basically a deeper, let's say, collaborations, let's say a promotions of collaboration between public and private actors, uh better uh, let's say financial tools, financial instruments that will allow companies to have access to finding ways in a much easier way, uh, and not kind of like lead fund, have funding kind of swayed away by influence of you know some particular some particular governments or some particular actors are very influential. I hope that uh there will be as well um again a very big emphasis on being prescriptive in how things should be, should look like, and allow small companies to kind of figure it out by themselves, you know, as uh as they go. Um something else as well is the um the fact that we also need to pay attention to the fact that at the moment we don't have necessarily the talent to have you know say this big industry active and flourish in uh in Europe. So, and and this is a huge, huge issue. This is one of the main barriers actually that is usually being flagged, uh flagged by companies in uh let's say the green space. So a huge emphasis should be put on skills, skills not just from the point of view of let's say just transitions, so not just helping companies move from say brown jobs, so jobs in mostly let's say polluting uh industries, but to green jobs, but really think what is the kind of skills that we need, and for that, what can we do to ensure that we have a very big open mind and open ear to uh the business, so the business side of uh uh of this equation, and ensure that uh our whole let's say education system is uh is up, is up for that, is up uh is up for the task. And finally, what I also hope is a very deep openness. So, very deep openness. So we're talking about the um as part of the clean industrial deal will be a new way of thinking about uh partnerships. And in the political guidelines of USAF on the line where they are announced, they're called the Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships, which ideally they're going to put together the um industrialization interest of uh of Europe together with the green transition interest of partner countries. Hopefully, this partnership will not only be used to ensure access to critical raw materials in a way that is going to bypass the Chinese dominance in the in this sector, but hopefully also to just spur this uh exchange of know-how between uh between European companies uh and um companies in in foreign countries.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

If I may recap, there are probably three main points, and they all revolve around this clean industrial deal that we're waiting for. So is point number one is providing a blueprint for green industrialization, uh thinking about how to support companies in this sector, but especially answering the big question, uh, one of the big questions of our time, which is how do we switch from a very lively research and development, research and innovation environment to commercialization, but not just commercialization, commercialization of scale. Um, and in these, of course, how do we square the circle of public-private collaboration? Then, number two is to have clear strategic priorities, to indicate where the European Union wants to go, uh, and leave the how more or less to the private enterprises, with some limits, of course, in terms of if you want support from public funding, probably the how will also be somewhat shaped, but still leave the freedom of the market, the freedom of the initiative of the companies there. And then point number three is an agenda for clean trade with third countries. So this clean trade and investment partnership in order to, among other things, increase the resilience of the European Union and decrease the single point of dependencies and vulnerabilities. Well, Tacilia, thank you so much. This was uh a long, admittedly, but very interesting and full of details episode. So I'm grateful that you found the time to speak to us. Again, thank you so much. Thank you to you, thank you so much for having me.