The Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the European Commission have reached a deal to overhaul the EU’s committee system that sets the rules governing how thousands of decisions are taken each year by the EU’s institutions.

Maroš Šefčovič, the European commissioner for inter-institutional relations, said the agreement would be “simpler, more efficient [and] more transparent” than the old system, known as the ‘comitology’ system.

Changes to the system were required by the Lisbon treaty, which came into force last December, and cleared their last hurdle today when the Parliament approved a report by József Szájer, a Hungarian centre-right MEP.

The main change concerns the ‘implementing powers’ of member states – how representatives of the EU’s 27 member states check decisions made by the Commission. The Commission will have more discretion in cases where there is no weighted majority of member states against a decision. In the past, the Commission had to take a decision if there was no majority against. Under the new rules, the Commission will have the choice to take the decision or to review it.

The new rules will also apply to decisions on trade defence measures such as anti-dumping duties. Until now, these decisions were taken by special procedures, with the Council having the last word.

There will be one exception – on how these rules apply to trade defence measures, where the Commission needs a positive opinion from the relevant committee to take a decision on definitive multilateral safeguard measures.

The Council and the Parliament will have equal rights of scrutiny and will be able to state that they consider the Commission has exceeded its powers. The Commission will have to review its draft decision and explain to the Council and the Parliament what it intends to do.

The new rules will apply to all new legislation from today, and from 1 March next year they will be applied to all older legislation.