In a global capitalist order, you don't get to strengthen your democracy without achieving a mostly independent economy first (or somewhat simultaneously.) One that produces the vast majority of the commodities your people need for their daily lives. If you don't have that, you'd get subordinated by the large capitalist countries as they run out of value they can extract domestically or elsewhere. For example you'd get sanctioned into investing billions into their economy and buying from it at higher prices instead of investing that domestically. Then your democracy gets fucked because it doesn't deliver the life improvements its subjects vote for.
This is why you need the union, as not a single European country is sufficiently self-sufficient. The union isn't sufficiently self-sufficient either but it can get there faster and easier than individual countries. And it doesn't have to develop an unaccountable elite. Mind you it already has one. The opposite, it has to .. eat it .. in order to make the job easier by stopping the siphoning and misallocation of resources needed for development.
I just don't know enough of the legal process a prosecution like this would take so I have no idea what they can concoct. :D