Abstract
Inter- or transparliamentary cooperation has received increasing attention, mainly with regard to parliaments in the European Union (EU), but also at the international or global level. We therefore have a good understanding, especially within the EU, of the venues and ways in which parliamentarians can talk to each other. What has received surprisingly little attention, however, is the question whether they talk about each other. The aim of the paper is therefore to provide a first, explorative, analysis of the extent to which EU national parliaments refer to other EU national parliaments in their plenary debates. Are there systematic differences in who refers to whom in which way and context? Such transnational debates in national parliaments have the potential to make the interconnectedness of parliamentary democracy in the EU visible for citizens and representatives alike. The empirical analysis is based on all plenary debates in the lower houses of Austria and Germany from 2009 to 2017.
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