Resumen
This paper studies the policies designed to promote SMEs implemented in the Andean Community of Nations (ACN) and the European Union (EU) in the past few decades. Based on an analytical and comparative methodology, it is set out that, with regard to synchronous or sequential adoption hypotheses, public policies that support SMEs respond to an independent adoption model and are determined by their own historical and political context, according to the different arenas in which the economic integration process of both regions is found. The paper also highlights that in the ACN, in contrast to the EU, it is difficult to find abiding lines of action in the design of these public policies.