18/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - Flagship initiative on quantum technologies on starting blocks. The European Commission is laying the ground for the flagship initiative on quantum technologies which will be launched in 2018, confirmed Digital Economy and Society Commissioner Günther Oettinger in a speech delivered on Tuesday 17 May at the Quantum EUROPE 2016 conference in Amsterdam (Netherlands). This €1 billion initiative is part of the package to digitise industry, presented on 19 April. It will be funded in part by the Horizon 2020 programme and by other national and European sources, as part of the future emerging technologies (FET) programme. The next stages are for Council approval to be given to the project at the end of May and for the preparatory phase to begin in June, overseen by the high-level steering committee set up by the Commission. (SPj)