Like any multilateral economic/political arrangement, the EU is merely an instrument through which its most powerful members can exert control over the less powerful ones.

Also, don't ever let anyone tell you that economics and politics are two separate things - they are not. They are one and the same. In the case of the EU, the European Central Bank loans are an economic tool for enforcing a certain political rule.

And finally, I read somewhere that the mission of bureaucracy (or Eurocracy, in this case) is to consolidate and maintain power. This would certainly seem to apply here.