UEFA has confirmed that the winners of the Europa League will qualify for the Champions League from the 2015-16 season onwards.
European football's governing body announced the development - which had been reported as likely on Thursday - at its Congress on Friday.
Gianni Infantino, the UEFA general secretary, said the change was being introduced in an attempt to make European club football's second competition more appealing to clubs.
It is believed that the Europa League and Champions League winners will no longer take a place away from their domestic leagues if they finish outside the Champions League qualifying spots.
However, five clubs - an increase from four - from one country would be the Champions League maximum.
If clubs from the same nation won both European competitions in the same season, the club finishing fourth in the domestic league would not qualify for the Champions League, instead taking a Europa League place.
The Europa League winners will be rewarded with direct qualification for the group phase of the Champions League in most circumstances, UEFA said.
The regulations of European competition run on a three-year cycle, the latest of which began in 2012, which is why the winners of the 2015 Europa League final in Warsaw will be the first beneficiaries.
UEFA's executive committee, which met in London ahead of the Champions League final, has long voiced concern that teams from some of the major leagues do not take the competition - which replaced the UEFA Cup in 2009 - seriously enough.
President Michel Platini has criticised French clubs' attitude to the competition, with Marseille, runners-up to Valencia in Gothenburg in the 2004 UEFA Cup, the only French side to make the final of the top two competitions in the last 14 seasons.
Clubs in Italy, which used to dominate European football's secondary competition, rarely make any kind of impact. Parma were the last to reach the final, beating Marseille in Moscow in 1999.
