European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images Brussels approves plan for European Labor Authority EU countries won’t have to work with the new agency, but contribute voluntarily.

The EU is set to open its next agency later this year after the institutions agreed plans for a European Labor Authority to police work standards for the 17 million mobile workers across the bloc.

Crucially, under the final deal reached between the Council and European Parliament Thursday, countries will not be forced to work with the new authority, and instead be able to contribute on a voluntary basis.

The ELA's work will include mediating on cross-border employment disputes and aiming to weed out undeclared work around the EU. The European Commission proposed the agency should have an annual budget of €50 million and 140 staff when it first set out the plan last year.

"We have made a lot of progress on fairer rules for labor mobility in recent years," said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker following the deal. "The new authority will help us to make them work in practice.”

The ELA was first mooted by Juncker in 2017, and formally presented last year as part of efforts to bolster enforcement of EU rules covering everything from reforms to the Posted Worker Directive to clearing up a spat between richer and poorer EU countries over market access for truckers.

A location for the ELA will only be decided once the legislation gets a signoff from EU ambassadors and the European Parliament.