EU leaders have approved a comprehensive reform of the Council of Ministers, one of the most powerful European institutions, and agreed that summits should be shorter and simpler in future.
The number of councils will be reduced from 16 to 10, and national delegations at summits will be limited to 20 people.
The Council of Ministers, where member-states are represented by ministers, approves, amends or rejects legislation proposed by the European Commission.
In some policy areas, the council makes decisions jointly with the European Parliament.
The General Affairs Council, where foreign ministers meet, will now be called the General Affairs and External Relations Council. It will meet in two formations, one dealing with foreign policy issues while the second co-ordinates the work of other councils and prepares meetings of EU leaders.
Although the council has not been formally divided in two, the two formations will have separate agendas and may meet on different days. Member states can decide which ministers to send to each meeting but the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, said that he expects to attend both formations.
The German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, predicted that the council would eventually split. Some governments are expected to send ministers from the prime minister's office to the co-ordinating meetings, leaving foreign ministers to concentrate on foreign policy.
The other councils are: Economic and Financial Affairs (including budget policy); Justice and Home Affairs; Employment, Social Policy and Welfare (including health and consumer affairs); Competitiveness (dealing with the internal market, industry and research); Transport, Telecommunications and Energy; Agriculture and Fisheries; Education, Youth and Culture.
Meetings of EU leaders are called the European Council.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, welcomed the reforms which, he said, made clear that the leaders were determined to make the EU work more efficiently.
Council meetings, which at present take place behind closed doors, will be televised when proposals are being presented and when votes are taken.
EU summits will now last for just one day, with a dinner for heads of state and government and the President of the European Commission the evening before. The agenda will be shorter and speaking time will be limited to ensure greater efficiency.
The leaders agreed that each country holding the six-month presidency should work more closely with the country which succeeds it so that annual work programmes can be devised.
The Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, last week announced an overhaul of the commission that would create up to 10 vice-presidents with responsibility for a number of policy areas. The vice-presidents would meet at least once a week but the entire commission would only meet once a month.
The changes would not come into effect until 2004 but some commissioners are understood to be unhappy with the proposals, which they fear could create a two-tier commission.
•Up to 20,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Seville on Saturday protesting at the alleged excesses of globalisation The march was followed by a "concert against globalisation" early yesterday morning.
There was no sign of the violent clashes that have marked protests at other international gatherings, including an EU summit held in Barcelona in March.
On the Spanish-Portuguese border, some 500 Portuguese activists were barred by police from entering Spain by bus, and some alleged that they were struck with batons, news media in Lisbon reported.
Portugal's newspapers yesterday condemned the tactics used by Spanish police to prevent the leftist activists, including a member of parliament, from crossing the border to attend the anti-globalisation demonstration in Seville."The shocking images we saw on television last night have left every Portuguese person feeling indignant," said the daily Publico in an editorial.
