Thank you for this, couldn't have put it better myself.

I'll go one step further and make conjecture that the entire Gaia-X thingie is likely from the get-go a nice little scheme to milk public money directly into the pockets of the proponents of the whole affair.

Brussels is teeming with firms whose specialty and sole purpose is fabricating bogus "projects" to squeeze EU research grant money into their and their clients pockets.