BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeared to kill off any chance of European trade chief Peter Mandelson serving a second term at the European Commission on Thursday, saying Mandelson wanted to do something else.
"Peter Mandelson has said he doesn't want to become thenext commissioner, that he wants to do only one term," Browntold reporters on the sidelines of a European Union summit.
Mandelson, a close ally of former Prime Minister TonyBlair, said a year ago he would not seek another spell at theEU executive after his term expires in 2009.
But newspapers said this week Brown had recently askedMandelson about the possibility of a second term as hiscountry's nominee in Brussels, even though the two men arewidely reported to dislike each other.
Mandelson then said he might rethink his decision. HoweverBrown seemed to firmly rule out the possibility of Mandelsonstaying on.
"I think it's important to say that Peter Mandelson hasdone a great job as commissioner and of course it's his wish todo something else," the prime minister said.
Brown noted that Mandelson was the EU's chief negotiator intalks on a new world trade agreement, which have been makingslow progress. "I will be talking to him very soon about how wecan move that forward," he said.
As trade commissioner since 2004, Mandelson negotiatestrade agreements on behalf of the EU's 27 countries andoversees other issues such as anti-dumping investigations.
(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Paul Taylor and JonBoyle)
