There are no authoritarian countries in the bloc. So what is your point?
If you don't see the difference between a truely authoritarian regime and the EU, you never paid attention in history class or current world events.
EU is run in authoritarian ways, but so far it's in, let's say, benevolent dictator mode. But same mechanism can be easily abused. And it's already abused. Just in ways that don't affect day-to-day life too much. But overall it's very bad for the society which does not feel attached to decisions of it's servants. Which is the bad thing. Democracies can easily cause a lot of harm (e.g. wars, repressions etc) too. But authocracies ruin societies for a loooong time. Wether they spilled blood or not.
What the EU does so, is managing to get 27 nations to work on compromises. And it does so quite well, sometimes better and sometimes not. That, obviously, involves a ton of politics (humanity hasn't figured out a different approach yet, heck, even the most authoritarian and absolutists governments had tons of politics). The core fact remains so: all participants in EU governance are either elected directly at EU or national level or nominated by those elected parties.
The core fact is that EU governance is far removed from the people. It’s too huge and too diverse. But it’s perfect ground for deep state (deep union?) to find ways to work around democratic instruments.
There is a lot of propaganda around what EU is paying for or allowing. But the truth is that each country would be able to do the exact same thing if they wanted to, just with better money efficiency because it wouldn't have to be cut so much for feeding the bureaucracy monster of the EU...
And yes, it's terribly inefficient too. The only thing it's efficient at is building a class of people who rely on EU institutions for their wellbeing. Collaborator class if I may?
This is EXACTLY what it feels like; and in most cases it was pretty clear to me that those people cost more money to society than any kind of "value" they were bringing.
But the whole thing is politics anyway, so outcomes are kinda irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. To me it looks like a prototype of some sort of new communist system, where the "leaders" choices are completely disconnected from the rest of the population...
Back in the day, when there was still a communist bloc, this kind of system, a "soviet republic" consisting of a hierarchy of workers councils was the usual example for how you can have elections but not have democracy. Because the hierarchy of councils will dilute any kind of will and sovereignty of the people into the will of the political upper class.
Most people looking for “more democracy” are actually advocating for a more politicised commission, which is a very bad idea.
IMO more politics at EU level overall is a bad idea. The strength of europe is diversity and competition within the region. Not a bureaucracy superstate on shaky legs with a rather long runway to die.
In as much as it is what people actually want through revealed preference, it’s as democratic as they come.
The original article uses "Antidemocratic" as a subtly negative value judgment. One of my points was that "Democratic" management of finances has often turned sour, too.