The European Union said on Friday that it would abide by the World Trade Organisation ruling that has favoured India in the bed linen dispute.

"We will abide by the ruling. As it is we have not been imposing any anti-dumping duty on Indian bed linen since November 2001," EU Trade Director Herve Journjean said.

The WTO Appellate body on April 8 had reversed a dispute settlement panel's findings, which had gone against India regarding the method of calculation of anti-dumping duty by EU on imports of bed linen.

The body has said, "The European Union had acted inconsistently in applying the provisions of anti-dumping agreement in determining the volume of dumped imports for determining the injury caused to domestic producers."

"It is not the question of winning or losing the case," he said adding there was a dispute between India and EU and that has now been resolved and this is what WTO dispute mechanism is all about.

Journjean, who had a marathon meeting on WTO issues with Indian commerce ministry officials, said EU welcomed the new Exim Policy, which has sent the right signal by lifting quantitative restrictions on 69 items and other trade reform measures.

On EU's stringent regulations on marine imports, Jouanjean said these were not protectionist measures as alleged by India.

The sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures were applicable to all imports of marine products and India was not being singled out, he said.

He also did not agree with the view that the health standards were being manipulated from time to time and said they were prescribed and tested by scientists who had no vested interests.

Also, European Union needed to import shrimps in large quantity as it produced very little and hence there was no reason to prevent imports if standards were met.

Elaborating on his nine-hour long meeting with additional secretary, commerce, S N Menon on Thursday, Jouanjean said EU has assured India that quota restrictions on textiles would be lifted with the dismantling of the Multifibre Agreement by 2004 end.