In 1988, Jacques Delors, in a speech before the European Parliament, urged member states to “wake up” to the fact that much of their policy-making powers had been transferred to the European Union. In 1990 he declared it his objective

The goal was unmet, but not quixotic. Craig Parsons has shown how the “accumulation of community initiatives” recasts the institutional and discursive framework of European politics such that ideas that were once subject to heated debate now locate normal political deliberation. Because so many aspects of national policy have become the province of Brussels, the Union already looks and acts more like a kind of federal entity than it does an “international organization.” Not only do (most) EU countries share a single policy in trade, agriculture, money, and market regulation, but institutionally the Single European Act and the treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam deprive member states of much of their power to oppose policies supported by a majority of members, and deny the Council, where state interests are represented, the power to pass (certain kinds of) legislation without the explicit approval of the European Parliament.