Legislation in most countries does not come from elected officials, it typically is drafted up by lawyers. That's not a good argument. With the commission a lot of what ends up on the proposals is lobbied by citizens and it's the MEP that vote on it before becoming law who are elected.
I vote liberal parties in my country and that has done jack shit to prevent shitty laws to be passed because the majority seems to be electing the types of people who absolutely adore surveillance.
The difference is that you can vote for people who choose lawyers and they can influence what lawyers write. You dont have this much control in the EU.
The governments of each country in the EU, elected democratically, are the people who choose the specific law-writers (council of ministers) who you are critical of for proposing this law in this story.
To the extent that conspiracies of “deep state” or “lobbyist” are involved, the only reason the EU is different to the member states themselves is that it’s a single big target instead of a lot of small ones.
And in this case lawyers role is to implement what EC proposed and MEPs voted in. Elected governments are like management of McDonalds franchise. People can choose chair layout or where napkins are located.
I vote liberal parties in my country and that has done jack shit to prevent shitty laws to be passed because the majority seems to be electing the types of people who absolutely adore surveillance.