Portugal states that it has a national committee for scientific diving (APorMC: Associação Portuguesa de Mergulho Científico), but that there is no legal framework for occupational scientific diving, nor are there any legal standards or certification requirements. There are no medical conditions. There are also no special requirements for initial training (ESDP consultation document 05). The training corresponds to these of Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) which is a recreational diving training agency.
The given certification is called European, which is not recognized by the EU nor by the statutory countries. It is therefore difficult to understand how such a diploma can be advertised in training course advertisements. The lack of respect for ESDP training standards and the vagueness surrounding the obtaining of a so-called “European” diploma are, for the moment, keeping Portugal away from any equivalence system that might be set up.
