It was really a way of taking power away from national electorates, and bringing it up to a higher level where nation elites and oligarchies would be able to call the shots without being accountable to anyone. The argument is usually that the European Union is this super-state which is imposing its policies on the poor national governments - and that may be the case when we're talking about especially weak governments, or left-wing governments - but in general the EU is a system through which the national governments are able to increase their power and increase their unaccountability to their national citizens.

Journalist Thomas Fazi explains why no one is voting for democracy in the European Parliament elections - from the neoliberal power arrangements between the parliament, European Commission and European Central Bank that float above the influence and interest of Europe's citizens, to the ways the EU's makeup serve to constrain left progress - and why the only way out is out, not reform.

Thomas wrote the article The European Union Is an Antidemocratic Disgrace for Jacobin.