ESS is a joint European research project. It is neither the European Commission nor the EU’s Council of Ministers that decides where ESS will be built. Instead, the decision is made when the countries that are interested in jointly building, owning and operating ESS have established a coalition and entered into a formal agreement with a host country. The decisions about what will be built, how it will be financed and where it will be located are arrived at during negotiations on a government level between a host country and those countries that wish to use the facility.