German Christian Democrat Markus Pieper has resigned from the post of European Union SME Envoy, to which the European Commission had appointed him, on the evening of Monday 15 April - just hours before he was due to take up the post (see EUROPE B13384A19).
Mr Pieper justified his decision by pointing to the fact that the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, who is responsible for SMEs, had “boycotted in advance” his appointment, in a statement to the German daily...