Portugal signed the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI) Declaration in July 2019, becoming the ninth EU member state to join the initiative. The declaration had been launched at the Digital Assembly in Bucharest on June 13, 2019, where Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, and Spain were the initial signatories. Hungary and Poland signed alongside Portugal.
According to the European Commission announcement, Portugal’s Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education Manuel Heitor stated that Portugal was “actively participating in building the future through strengthening European innovative platforms that explore the frontiers of knowledge.”
By signing the declaration, Portugal committed to working with the Commission and other member states on an action plan to develop and deploy a quantum communication infrastructure across the EU within ten years. The planned QCI would consist of a terrestrial fiber-optic segment and a space-based satellite segment, with Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) as its first service.