ABSTRACT
This article puts forward a case oft the exploration of new forms of substatal participation in the formulation and implementation of foreign policy in those states which have a complex structure in the context of the European Union. It suggests the need to adopt a new approach. Referring to the genesis and evolution of European integration and of the political 212recognition of the regions as two parallel processes which respond to a common logic, the concept of plurinational diplomacy is presented, as the necessary reformulation of the ways of understanding and practising diplomacy from the recognition of legal and political reality of a shared sovereignty within the European Union. Plurinational diplomacy implies the development of a double loyalty: on the one hand, the incorporation into the foreign agenda of the state of specific attention to the needs of the international scope of regional governments; on the other hand, attention to and development of a certain dimension of state politics in the foreign activities of regional governments.
