emergency meeting. They had a lunch together, and Schopper asked Matsuura to fund the missing $400,000 immediately. Matsuura agreed to the request and the Interim Council Members were informed after the lunch. Because the BESSY components were used only as an injector system, the construction of a new main ring was still needed for SESAME. The estimated cost of the ring was $10 million so additional sources of funding were required. On 23 July 2001 a formal proposal supported by the German and French Ministers of Research, and later the Commissioner for Research Philippe Busquin, was submitted to European Commissioner Chris Patten. In October 2001 chef de cabinet of Commissioner Patten, Anthony Cary, informed Schopper that an independent evaluation by a panel of international experts was needed. The Techno-Economic Feasibility Study was under the guidance of Professor Guy Le Lay of the University of Marseille. The report concluded that the project was promising and would "effectively stimulate scientific activity and cooperation in the Middle East". However, in August 2003, Commissioner Patten stated that "the Commission is not in a position at this stage to provide Community funding to SESAME". In a subsequent meeting arranged between the Jordanian government, SESAME representatives and the EU Commission, the main of contention was the project's energy level. It was claimed that a competitive facility needed a higher energy level. A compromise was reached that the machine should start at 2 GeV, with 2.5 GeV available at a later stage. This would have increased the cost of the ring by another $2 million. The issue was eventually resolved through negotiations started by Director General Rolf Heuer between CERN and the Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Carlos Moedas. About $5 million were approved for CERN to be used for the construction of the magnets of the SESAME main ring. The Sergio Fubini Guesthouse that was inaugurated in December 2019 was funded by the Government of Italy represented by the Ministry for Education, University and Research through INFN. Design The machine works in four stages. Microtron The microtron accelerates electrons to the energy of 22.5 MeV, and injects them into the booster. It was fully operational in November 2011. Booster synchrotron The booster synchrotron receives electrons from the microtron, and accelerates them to 800 MeV, for injection into the storage ring. The booster was created with parts from the German synchrotron facility BESSY, which was decommissioned in