"Captain Cook project?"

Bovard was stunned for five seconds before remembering what Heinzl had said. Indeed, the EU once engaged in a Captain Cook project, which seems to have happened four or five years ago, right? The EU has done a lot of similar projects, but basically there is a lot of thunder and little rain. The EU allocates funds for these projects every year, and these projects only have some presence when they are funded, and they seem to have disappeared on weekdays.

EU officials certainly aren't going to be dead people, aren't they all like that? They've come up with some good proposals, including big R&D projects like Captain Cook's to keep Europe at the forefront of technology. However, the plan is easy to propose, but it is very troublesome to do things. It is said that the Captain Cook project encountered countless obstacles in the implementation process, such as funding problems, collaboration problems, patent problems, and almost every step forward had to be overcome. After a long time, the first officials who proposed the plan lost their minds, and the matter slowly fell silent, except that the European Union's finance department is still allocating daily operating funds year after year to support the dozen or so officials in the project committee.

Bovard was an official in charge of economic and commercial operations, so he knew something about the Captain Cook project. He remembered that the project had not moved for at least a year, so much so that when Heinzl first talked about it, Bovard felt a little unfamiliar.

"Uh-huh, I remember this project. After a brief moment of distraction, Bovard replied in a disguised manner, "By the way, I remember that Prometheus was also one of the participating companies in the project, why, is there any progress on this project?"

"Yes, together with other collaborators, we have completed the overall design of the sixth generation of the deep-sea semi-submersible drilling platform. Heinzl replied.

"Allow me to congratulate you. Bovard said hypocritically.

Heinzl did not have the slightest look of pride or emotion on his face, and he said: "Mr. Bovard, I hope that the EU will intervene in this project, otherwise all the results we have achieved in the early stage will be in vain." ”

Bovard was stunned: "What do you mean?"

"Norway's Birtu Petroleum recently prepared to build two new deep-sea oil rigs, and we wanted them to use the results of the Captain Cook project, but they chose Chinese as the equipment supplier. Heinzl said.

"Chinese?" Bovard only felt that his head was a little bigger, how could this matter be related to the Chinese?

"The Chinese stole the technology of our European companies on deep-sea oil platforms and developed their own sixth-generation deep-sea platforms to become our competitive products," Heinzl said. When we learned that Biertu was planning to build two new deep-sea platforms, we quickly contacted them, but they said they preferred to use Chinese technology. ”

"Did Birtu say why?" asked Bovard.

Heinzl said: "They say that the Chinese are more technologically mature. ”

"How is this possible!" Bovard subconsciously retorted. Don't look at the fact that he had forgotten about the Captain Cook project before, but once reminded, he could still remember a lot of details. He remembers that the Chinese only mastered the technology of the second-generation platform a few years ago, while the Europeans had extensive experience with the fifth-generation platform. A few years have passed, and some people actually say that the technology of the Chinese is more mature on the sixth generation platform, and the Europeans are inferior to the Chinese, isn't this nonsense?

Heinzl shrugged his shoulders and said, "I agree exactly with you, and I think that the opinion of Birtu is completely false." We suspect that the Chinese have adopted some unfair competition tactics in conducting business, and we hope that the European Commission will investigate this matter and protect the rights and interests of our European companies. ”

"Is this a formal request from your company?" asked Bovard.

"Yes, we will submit the formal application to the EU within today," Heinzl said. ”

"We'll start an investigation as soon as possible. "However, the investigation takes a cycle, and I hope Mr. Heinzl understands that." ”

"I totally understand. "Given the complexity of this issue, which may involve some commercial bribery issues, we suggest that the European Commission should proceed with a cautious investigation and not rush at all in terms of time." ”

"Huh?" Bovard was a little dumbfounded, what kind of rhythm was this, shouldn't Heinzl be urging himself to hurry up and investigate?

Heinzl said with a cold face: "Of course, during the investigation, we hope that the EU can issue a trade ban suspending the import of deep-sea oil platform technology from China, so that the Chinese will not take advantage of the time difference in the investigation to achieve their goals." ”

"I see. I think we'll do that. ”

Beauvard really got it this time. It turns out that Heinzl's purpose is indeed to let the EU drag this matter for a while, provided that during this time, the Chinese cannot sell their technology to Europe. Prometheus, as a local European company, will of course not be affected by this ban. In other words, Heinzl's accusations are likely to be unfounded, but as long as the EU accepts their request to investigate the matter, they can ask the EU to prevent Chinese from participating in this business in the name of investigation, so that Pumai's opportunity comes.

What a play!

Bovard, who had seen through Heinzl's intentions, cursed in his heart. It is clear that your own skills are inferior to others, maybe the price is expensive, and the service is poor, so that Europe's own users are not willing to accept your products, and would rather travel thousands of miles to find Chinese manufacturing, and as a result, you still pretend to be wronged, and let the EU come out for you. Isn't it a shame for the well-known Prometheus company, a first-class European enterprise, to use such indiscriminate means to compete with an enterprise in a developing country?

Thinking in his heart, Bovard still had to accept Heinzl's request, for no other reason, the EU is the institution that does this kind of dirty work, and the EU has not agreed to even more lowly demands than this. In any case, he had to figure out what was going on, and at least give Poumai a defensible explanation.

On the same day, Prometheus sent a formal letter to the European Commission, asking the EU to investigate China's deep-sea oil platform products exported to Europe. In the official letter, Prometheus listed a number of crimes against Chinese products, including infringement of intellectual property rights of European companies, dumping, suspicion of unfair competition, and suspected violation of EU regulations on technical safety. Some of the arguments are extremely nonsensical, such as the fact that a part used in the Chinese equipment may have been made in a prison factory, which would be contrary to the EU's regulation on the protection of labor rights......

Boward sighed when he received the letter, made a report to his superiors, and then set off for Norway with his assistant Emmeline. One of the parties to this case was the Norwegian company Biltu, and Bovard had to listen to Biltu's opinion.

"Yes, we did choose China's Luoye Group as the general contractor for this project, and they were able to provide us with a sixth-generation semi-submersible deep-sea drilling rig that met the requirements. McGuig, the CEO of Birtu, answered Bovard's inquiry bluntly. The European Commission does not have direct jurisdiction over these companies, so companies can ignore EU officials. Of course, considering that the EU may need to provide some convenience to itself at some point, companies will not be too cold to EU officials, but maintain a respectful attitude.

"Couldn't European companies provide such technology? When the European Union launched the Captain Cook project, Birtu also supported it, so why don't you consider adopting the results of the Captain Cook project?" asked Bovard.

McGuig showed a sneering expression and asked, "Mr. Bovard, if I am not mistaken, it should be Mr. Heinzl of Prometheus who went to the EU to file a complaint, right?"

"Exactly. Bovard nodded. McGuigg was able to name Heinzl directly, and it was clear that they had already played against each other before. This circle is not very big, and others can understand who is what kind of person is.

McGuig asked, "Mr. Bovard, did Heinzl say how far their technology has been developed?" ”

"Yes, he said they have done the general design. ”

"That's right. "If I'm not mistaken, the Captain Cook project started five years ago, and to this day, they've only done the general design, and they've done it without a detailed argument, or more bluntly, they've just spent an hour sketching it and then claiming to be their overall design." ”

"Wouldn't it?" Bovard was shocked. He thought back to what Heinzl had said to him, and couldn't help but be a little shocked. What Heinzl said was indeed the completion of the overall design, but it was full of mystery. The overall concept design can also be considered the overall design, and that doesn't mean anything, because the concept design is so easy, as McGuigg said, a sketch can be considered complete.

"But what step have the Chinese taken?" asked Emmeline, beside her.

McGuig said: "The Chinese have completed the entire design of the sixth-generation platform, and they have already started construction of a sixth-generation platform in their own country, and now only the interior outfitting of the deck building remains, and there is no technical difficulty." I can present to you a statistic, in the past four years, the Chinese have obtained more than 300 core patents on the sixth generation platform, and there are countless patents on the edge. And our Captain Cook project has only 15 patents, and all of them are worthless patents. ”