Las actividades internacionales de las Cortes Generales (1978-2011)un ejemplo de parlamentarismo internacional de los órganos legislativos

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze the work of the Cortes Generales to support the international participation of its deputies and senators between 1978 and 2011. The theoretical framework of this research is based on the international parliamentarism thesis which was created in 1960 by Edoardo Vitta. This theory is used to look the phenomenon through a legal-formal perspective which supposes that the international activities of Parliament are not prohibited by political constitution. The research hypothesis is that the lack of juridical restrictions about the role of Parliament in international relations and functional autonomy of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate has provided to the Cortes Generales the ability to make international activities. The analysis identified four institutional spheres of international character in which have participated deputies and senators: the international parliamentary assemblies, the international parliamentary conferences, the bilateral parliamentary meetings and all-party groups of friendship inter-parliamentary, and the adoption of international solidarity resolutions. The key finding of this study is that the formal participation of Spanish parliamentarians into international institutional spaces has been the result of a progressive process of formalization by the Cortes Generales of unsystematic and informal international actions of some deputies and senators. Since 1978, the Spanish Parliament has begun to take the particular actions of parliamentarians about international matters as official activities of legislative body.