The EC launches simultaneously a consultation on the future "Small Business Act" for Europe, more or less inspired of the "Small Business American Act" of 1953.

You can read the text of the consultation by clicking here. The contributions are made through an online questionnaire and will be considered for the drafting of the" Small Business Act" for Europe.

These contributions and the Commission comments will be summarised in a report.

The draft answer by the secretariat which is available on our site by clicking here, will be completed on the basis of your reactions. Some questions necessarily require your involvement.

We ask you to send us your reactions and comments before 3 March 2008 at 12am at the latest so that we can submit this draft text to Cooperative Europe (notably at the upcoming EUCC meeting on 3 March).

CECOP has already expressed its opinion on this topic in a common declaration together with Cooperative Europe and considers that it is important to address its own position to the Commission since this SBA will especially concern workers cooperatives. Furthermore, this issue is important since it is going to define the future of SME for the upcoming years: indeed, the SBA is one of the priorities of the future French presidency. CECOP is going to make up a working group on SBA. We ask all members who want to be part of it to let us know as soon as possible.