The practice of inter-institutional agreements has been abundant and persistent ever since the founding of the EEC. Despite its unclear legal status they have become an important tool for resolution of conflicts in the EU institutional framework playing an important role in the development of the Parliament’s competences in the EU external relations.

The article provides a study of the evolution of the inter-institutional cooperation in the EU external relations. With the Parliament being the “pure net beneficiary” of the inter-institutional practice in this area, the article analyzes reasons and consequences of the phenomenon, stressing the role of the agreements in the process of “the slow but sure rise of power of a new kind of a parliamentary assembly”.