Brussels, 16/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - In an interview given to the French daily, Les Echos, published on Monday (EUROPE 9344), the European Commissioner for Trade, Peter Mandelson, says that he is “more open than others” about the question of obtaining a WTO derogation to help SMEs participate in the Union's public procurement markets. The US already benefits from this kind of derogation. For the last year France has been striving to convince its European partners to get the Union to set up a mechanism supporting SMEs that is similar to the US Small Business Act (SBA) (EUROPE 9245 and 9292), a legislative act that sets aside a minimum percentage of direct public contacts or sub contracts to small businesses in an effort to promote their development. Mr Mandelson said that he would see whether they could obtain this kind of derogation “without paying too high a price”. The Commissioner explained that he had to obtain a favourable decision for the College of Commissioners on the matter. Until now, the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Charlie McCreevy has been rather hostile to French proposals. He considers that transposing such a derogation into Community legislation would be difficult. The other issue the Commissioner for trade is reviewing is that on reciprocity. Mandelson is investigating whether it would be timely to close off participation in Union public procurement markets to countries that close their doors to European companies. (eh)