Not many people know that the explicit goal of the early founders of the EU was to institute federalisation by stealth. They distrusted democracy (Hitler was voted into power), and chose to disguise massive political reform as economic.

Monnet - one of the original drivers behind the formation of the EU - had this to say:

"Europe's nations should be guided towards the Super-state without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation."

To be clear, these weren't some sort of evil oligarchs at work: they wanted there to never be another WW2, another Hitler, etc.

But the nature of the EU, from the outset, was much as its critics today contend.

More at http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/679277/History-EU-how....

Correction: that is not a quote from Monnet but a summary by a contemporary of his. He actually said:

"Via money Europe could become political in five years" and "… the current communities should be completed by a Finance Common Market which would lead us to European economic unity. Only then would … the mutual commitments make it fairly easy to produce the political union which is the goal.