The EU has agreed on a new method for working out whether countries such as China are selling goods at unfairly low prices on the European market, saying that the rules will protect EU industry without falling foul of international standards.

MEPs and representatives of the EU’s national governments brokered a deal in Strasbourg on the new system, which is intended to pre-empt a forthcoming World Trade Organisation ruling that officials and lawyers in Brussels fear will find that the EU’s existing approach for applying anti-dumping penalties against Chinese imports violates internationally agreed standards.

Under current rules, Brussels tends to assess whether dumping is taking place by comparing the export price of a good with its price on that country’s domestic market. But for nations, such as China, that the EU has not granted so-called “market economy status”, it can use a different method, based on price comparison with other countries.

Beijing has argued that the method, which has helped Brussels impose more than 50 trade defence measures against China, breaks WTO rules by breaking a promise to grant market economy status to the country 15 years after it joined the organisation in 2001.

Cecilia Malmström, the EU’s trade commissioner, said that the new system would be “country neutral” while strengthening protection for EU companies against unfair commercial practices.

“Our industry can rest assured that with this they can rely on the EU to support them when they face unfair trade,” she said.

Under Tuesday’s deal, the main change with the status quo will be that there will no longer be such an explicit difference between the method used for countries that are judged to be market economies and those that are not. Instead, the commission will use a more case-by-case approach when working out how to calculate dumping margins, including by looking at factors such as the role of state-owned enterprises in the economy and the lack of an independent financial sector.

While the pending WTO decision placed Brussels under pressure to review its rules, MEPs also seized on the opportunity to demand that the commission do more to take into account social and environmental standards in an exporting country when evaluating whether its exporters benefit from an unfair advantage.

Yannick Jadot, a French MEP in the European Parliament’s Green group, said that the measures take “a step in the right direction by starting to combat social dumping from third countries”.

Parliament is set to vote on the new rules in November so that they can take effect next year.