EU member states agreed Wednesday to allow officials in Brussels to screen their oil and gas deals with Russia and other third countries in order to ensure security of supply.

The bloc's 28 member states and the European Parliament struck the agreement giving oversight to the European Commission, the EU executive, as part of long-standing efforts to rely less on Russian gas.

"This is a big political and legislative achievement," European Commission vice president for energy, Maros Sefcovic, said in a statement.

"Today's agreement ensures that rather than assessing whether international agreements comply with EU law after they are signed, member states will now do so in advance."

Fresh in EU minds is the collapse in 2014 of the South Stream pipeline project to ship Russian gas under the Black Sea to Europe after Brussels ruled that the way Bulgaria had awarded contracts breached EU competition law.

"The new rules... will allow the Commission to guarantee that no energy deal jeopardises the security of supply in an EU country, or hampers the functioning of the EU's energy market," EU climate and energy commissioner Miguel Canete said.

The EU grew concerned about its dependence on gas from Russia after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and after gas price disputes between Russia and Ukraine.

In disputes in 2006 and 2009, Moscow cut supplies to Ukraine during the winter, sparking knock-on shortages in Europe, especially in many of the former communist eastern states which still depend on Russia for nearly all their energy needs.

The EU relies on Russia for about a third of its gas supplies, with half of that amount transiting through Ukraine.

The European Parliament and the member states meeting in the European Council still have to formally approve the text.