Encryption is a key building block of digital society protecting the security of the online environment and enabling a meaningful exercise of civil liberties. This technology endows its users with power that does not always sit well with law enforcement and intelligence authorities, which accordingly lose their control over information exchanges within society. The arguments, albeit yet to be substantiated, that this dynamic significantly impacts the fight against crime or other threats have triggered decades-long ‘crypto-wars’ that endure to this day. These crypto-tensions are compounded by the reality that at present no technological solutions are known that could grant security agencies a so-called ‘exceptional access’ to communications and data without compromising cybersecurity and fundamental rights. This paper comprehensively explores encryption policy in the EU and how these debates have been playing out in the face of the quantum threat that requires mitigation with new methods of encryption.