GENEVA The European Union vowed Thursday to maintain its system for approving genetically engineered seeds, after the World Trade Organization confirmed a ruling that found the previous approvals practices too slow.

In a confidential ruling, WTO arbitrators on Wednesday confirmed a February decision that said the EU's former ban on new biotech seeds from companies like Monsanto DuPont and Syngenta broke international trade laws. The ruling does not challenge the EU's food approvals system, the bloc says, because it ended a six-year moratorium in 2004.

"Nothing in this panel report will compel us to change that framework," said Peter Power, the European Commission spokesman on trade. "The EU will continue to set its own rules on the import and sale of genetically modified food," he added, saying that nine new biotech products have been approved in the past year.

The ban, led by nations like France, Austria and Italy, cost American exporters $300 million a year in the $5.5 billion global biotech market, U.S. industry groups have said. The EU, which grows less than 1 percent of the world's genetically modified crops, has 98 million hectares, or 242 million acres, of global arable land, second only to the United States.

The WTO ruling may set a precedent for countries like India, Japan or Russia that require the labeling of foods with gene-altered ingredients.

The commission, the EU's executive body, says new laws in place since 2004 allow biotech seeds to be planted, traced and labeled, pointing to more than 30 modified products approved for marketing in the 25-nation bloc. New procedures also allow the import of gene-altered foods and give the commission the final say if governments can not agree on a product.

"The EU just has to do risk assessments" to justify bans on new biotech approvals, said Adrian Bebb, a campaigner at environmental group Friends of the Earth. "The WTO doesn't recommend any action on the moratorium," that ended, he said.

Nor does the WTO ruling strike down the bloc's right to treat the technology differently from conventional crops.

When the initial ruling came out, the commission described it as "largely of historical interest" and blamed national governments for continuing to obstruct new approvals.

The United States argued that the EU approval process for imports of biotech foods led to unnecessary delays resulting in a trade barrier. The EU said popular opposition - more than half of the region's 450 million consumers consider gene-engineered foods to be dangerous, according to an EU poll last June - meant consumers already were avoiding modified foods.

Governments in countries like Germany and France, as well as activists including Greenpeace International, say the crops threaten human health and the environment. The U.S. says the seeds are as safe as conventional seeds.

"Regardless of the outcome of this case, it is clear that biotechnology is here to stay," said Christian Verschueren, head of the Brussels-based CropLife International, which represents companies like Monsanto and DuPont. "Biotech plantings are even happening in the EU," he said, citing Spain, France, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Germany, "because of the benefits they bring."

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