I also chafe at the idea that EU law is comparable to a constitution.

The EU treaties are de facto a federal constitution, even though consolidating them into a single document called the European Constitution failed (partly because of Mélenchon).

We already have a constitution thank you very much.

Constitutions can be stacked on top of each other, there doesn’t have to be only one.

What FI is proposing here is more like when Blue cities in the US “opted out” of helping with ICE enforcement.

No, it isn’t. What LFI is proposing would be like putting, in the Constitution of California or that of another state, a provision incompatible with the Constitution of the United States.

Firstly, as usual LFI’s vision pretty much stops at the French border. They claim it’s a viable and good idea to create a constitutional principle of non-regression, but they only propose adding it to the French Constitution, not to a European treaty.

Secondly, it doesn’t really matter why they want to end the primacy of European law. If the precedent is set, it will almost certainly end up being used for things they don’t want, in France and in other member states. It’s also likely to result in a diplomatic crisis and possibly to the breakup of the EU.

(which FI knows well as we have a bunch of deputies in Bruxelles)

The far right also has MEPs, it doesn’t make them knowledgeable either.

I didn’t claim that the EU caused Greece’s decline, I claimed it should be ashamed of its inability to help Greece recover.

There’s a big difference between surviving and doing pretty well.

Greece isn’t a failed state.

Ideally it wouldn’t be a new organization, just a transfer from NATO to the existing EU military command.

FI’s platform is explicitly against exiting the Union or the Euro Zone.

LFI’s platform also states that:

1. they won’t make any compromises
2. they don’t care if what they do violates the EU treaties
3. they will end the primacy of EU law
4. they will suspend:
   • the sharing of budget plans with the EU
   • the free movement of goods and capital
   • France’s involvement in EU defence
   • free trade agreements

This is all anti-EU and no better than the far right.

Surprisingly, things worked out pretty well for Greece, so maybe that’s not the end of the world.

Things haven’t worked out pretty well for Greece. Its purchasing power per capita is one of the lowest in the EU, still below what it was in 2007, and now way behind Poland. The EU should be ashamed of its failure to help Greece recover.

Is Melenchon right? Is it better for the EU to be the organisation of mutual defence guarantees for Europe, rather than NATO?

That’s not what Mélenchon is advocating. The platform chapter on this topic doesn’t propose replacing NATO with the EU. The policy described in that chapter is reactionary, not progressive. Mélenchon is old and hasn’t really let go of the past. In many ways he’s the French version of Jeremy Corbyn.

It makes sense. A shift toward full integration can only come from within the UK. British economists are the ones who should explain that adopting the euro would be beneficial. Schengen is something the UK has to choose to discuss with Ireland and France.

You can find the answer to that question and many others in the Wikipedia article on European integration.

declining gas consumption for years.

Germany’s gas consumption isn’t declining and is approximately the same in 2025 as it was in 1995.

The letter and spirit of the paragraph both seem quite clear to me. The united Germany was to become party to the same treaties as West and East Germany with regard to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The NPT is the legal text of the “renunciation” of nuclear weapons, even though that specific word doesn’t actually appear in the NPT. Germany’s rights and obligations under the NPT are the same as those of all other signatories.

I’m saying your interpretation of the treaty is incorrect. Immediately after the two sentences you quoted is a third one clarifying that the “rights and obligations arising from the [NPT] will continue to apply to the united Germany”, meaning that Germany retains the right to withdraw from the NPT under Article X like any other signatory.

The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany restored the country’s full sovereignty. The positions it reaffirms don’t limit what Germany is allowed to do under other treaties. It doesn’t prevent Germany withdrawing from the NPT. It doesn’t prevent Germany from doing anything that other sovereign states can do.

Germany bought a small number (35) US fighter jets as replacement for the aging Panavia Tornado used as bombers carrying US nuclear weapons as they are not allowed by their allies to have their own.

This is a very weird claim. If Germany wanted to build its own nuclear bombs, it could withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Germany could also have asked to host French nuclear missiles instead of US nuclear bombs, possibly as part of an EU-wide agreement rather than a bilateral deal.

It’s a subsidy when the state ends up paying the difference between the guaranteed price and the average market price.

I guess another way would be fixed prices for all nuclear and renewables since they have fixed costs anyway. The thing is, the system already works that way to an extent, as there are a lot of guaranteed prices in renewables and some in nuclear. As far as I can tell, these subsidies are why the market price sometimes goes negative when solar or wind produce a lot: the subsidized sellers don’t care, they still receive their guaranteed income based on the quantity of energy they inject into the grid. It seems to me that without these subsidies the market prices would always be high, thus better reflecting the true cost of electricity.

Setting the electricity market price based on the most expensive source at any given time is pretty much universal in Europe. It’s an EU thing, not a specificity of the UK.

Changing this rule would reduce the income and profits of climate friendly electricity providers, thus penalizing the investors who tried to do the right thing.