These three things aligned incentives and balanced power - neither of which the EU features much of. Hence EU politicians engage in the following type of behaviour:
'Past projects [the EU] has backed include a 5.7million European Identity programme, featuring a donkey travelling from country to country complete with a solar panel and video camera, a TV channel costing 7million and watched by just 830 viewers per day and 570 million for development in Turkey, which isn't even in the union.'
Ever heard of a solar powered pirate ship? Or one carried by a donkey? No, because it's not efficient, and inefficiency costs pirates money. Each one of the pirates, that is. For EU bureaucrats, inefficiency buys votes and creates jobs.