The EU’s forthcoming Quantum Act will not come with a dedicated budget. “The act is not about budget,” said Thomas Skordas, deputy director-general of the European Commission’s DG CNECT, at a European Parliament event last week, on 3rd of September. “What the act will provide is the stimulus to make sure that we move in the right direction, that we bring people together.” The session, hosted by the European Quantum Flagship and German Green MEP Sergey Lagodinsky, brought together representatives from the Commission, Council and Parliament, along with researchers and quantum company founders. The Commission hopes to present the legislation by the end of 2026, although that timeline could slip into next year. The ambition behind it is significant. The EU has declared its aim to become the world’s quantum valley, and the act is intended to help make that happen. Skordas described the act as an enabling framework rather than a regulation. That distinction matters in Brussels, where recent technology policies such as the AI Act and the Digital Markets Act have largely focused on imposing rules and obligations rather than bringing different parts of an industry together. The clearest comment of the day concerned Europe’s quantum startups. “We cannot afford having 78 startups all on their own,” Skordas said. “We don’t have Microsoft, we don’t have Google, we don’t have IBM. We want competition, but at some stage, we expect a little bit of consolidation.” It is unusual for a Commission official to openly call for consolidation in an industry. But the comment also reflects a problem that has become increasingly difficult for Europe to ignore: its quantum efforts are spread across member states and different technology approaches, producing plenty of prototypes but fewer companies with the scale to build their own manufacturing capacity. Tommaso Calarco, secretary of