The EU Commission is regularly abused by any plurality of national governments to push for Europe-wide legislation that those governments want, but would not be able to enact nationally without significant voter backlash. So, they use European law as an excuse to say "See, we also do not want this, but we are forced to do so!". Same process as happens with international treaties like TPP or TTIP, which when signed would force numerous unpalatable changes to national laws.

Ed: And there's much of the reason for the bad rep of the EU inside of the EU. The rest (mostly in the UK) is due to Murdoch's personal interests, obviously.