Cisco is a private company. Their goal is to make money. If Cisco is able to enter a new market it is good for them.
If they manage to be the partner of choice for projects coordinated by Portuguese authorities it is definitely a good thing for Cisco and their shareholders.
I guess Cisco wins deals because they have the best solution matching the criteria established for the success of the project (price, used technology, implementation time, resiliency, ease of deployment, etc..)
But what about seeing private companies putting a foot into public education? Which goal are they pursuing?
I believe those so-called Networking Academies are nothing more than brainwashing and that Cisco's intentions is to create engineers hooked to Cisco technologies.
And I have met brainwashed Cisco engineers. I can tell that Cisco does an excellent job as their legion soldiers are usually very reluctant to try alternative solutions proposed by other vendors. How much can this impact at the time of choosing a partner and buying network kits?

There are interesting things happening in the networking world at the moment. It is sad whenever an organization chooses to remain locked to a specific vendor without a valid reason. It is frightening to see an independent State following the same path.
Do the Portuguese authorities want to spend one single euro promoting a specific vendor? I hope not.
If Portugal wants to foster innovation than Portugal should not have a single partner of choice but should instead promote diversity and look at the variety of technologies on the table and opt for vendor agnostic technologies and vendor agnostic education.