Berlin  - Germany's upper house of parliament endorsed new legislation on Friday that will enable the country to ratify the treaty streamlining the operations of the European Union.

The vote by the Bundesrat, made up of representatives of Germany's 16 federal states, paves the way for President Horst Koehler to sign the ratification documents for the Lisbon Treaty, the final step in the German approval process for the treaty.

Deputies in the lower house, or Bundestag, overwhelmingly approved the new legislation on September 8.

The vote was necessary after the country's top court ruled the domestic law empowering ratification of treaty had to be amended to give parliament more power in decisionmaking in Brussels.

The Lisbon Treaty must be ratified by all 27 EU member states before it can come into force. Aside from Germany, the ratification process has still to be completed in the Czech Republic, Poland and Ireland.

Both houses of the German parliament had already endorsed the treaty when it was stopped by the constitutional court on June 30, following a legal challenge mounted by more than 50 federal deputies. (dpa)