The EU has to solve complex coordination problems. To a large extent technocratic answers ARE what's needed. And we know that the public simply does not care to enter into complex issues - they always vote for the demagogue over the technocrat/the wonk (the guy you'd have beer with).

Even on big issus like global climate change or energy security of supply, awareness has been gained by oversimplifying and personalising. Same thing on institutional reform. It's the  British "red lines" - the "Sarkozy dynamism" - the Polish brinkmanship, etc...

People complain about the lack of transparency and the demagoguery but vote for it anyway, when they actually have a choice about it (and if they didn't understand the choice, it's because od the demagoguery).

Even trying to explain something as basic, from a technical pov, as the difference between average pricing and marginal pricing, is beyond what most people will ever bother to learn about.

The problem is not the lack of transparency. It's the lack of care by most people, and their corresponding willingness to be fed lies and disinformation that they vaguely feel is lies and disinformation, but cannot be bothered to actually unravel.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes