Less than ten years after its selection by the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures [ESFRI] to be part of Europe’s Roadmap of research infrastructures of pan-European interest, the Extreme Light Infrastructure’s implementation is close to completion on three sites in Czech Republic (ELI-Beams), Hungary (ELI-Attosecond) and Romania (ELI-Nuclear Physics), and the ELI project is about to become one of the “ESFRI landmarks”, for its key role as reference project of scientific excellence and of competitiveness of the European Research Area [ERA].