One of the many important features of the EU is that it can implement - and be blamed by member governments for - important policies that might be unpopular in short term cycles. Those policies can be implemented in a fair way that does not substantially disadvantage any particular member state.
Governments might understand, for example, the importance of policies that address climate change in a serious way, but need to be able to blame it on someone else because it will be expensive in the first instance (and then cheaper) and not necessarily immediately popular with the electorate.
It also protects the working class because pan european protections are easier to put in place at that level than unilaterally by, say, Tory governments or, even worse, Blair's 'labour' - the same goes for workers in other nations, of course. And nobody gets voted out because they say, "well it's Europe, not us!" Some have taken that too far and failed to promote the positive case for the EU, which is a failure of governments.
