The European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser (European XFEL) in the Hamburg area, Germany, is presently entering its commissioning phase and prepares for its first scientific user experiments.
Following successful first commissioning of the main electron accelerator, the first undulator, the x-ray beam transport and instrumentation at the Femtosecond X-ray Experiments (FXE) and (SPB/SFX) instruments, an early user experiment program shall start in summer 2017. In the talk I will briefly summarize the status of the European XFEL project and provide details about the start of user operation. Using examples of recent scientific applications, using other x-ray FEL facilities, and the available instrumentation of the science instruments at European XFEL, these will be used to discuss classes of experiments that will be possible to be conducted in the early user program.