I actually had a fairly intense "European Studies" class during my masters degree and it was quite eye-opening to me at the personal level.

The articles and texts the professors gave us very explicitly said that the EU has been leveraged by state-level politicians from the very beginning to bypass democratic controls and implement policies that they'd never be able to implement otherwise.

As I said, they are explicit about it, as in boasting about how clever they are in finding a smart way to implement their benevolent tyrant ideas, for the people, without the people.