[rsynnott]

... Wait, no, that's not how it works. The commission (broadly representing the will of the member states) proposes laws, the parliament (broadly representing the will of the people of the member states) votes on them. It's perfectly plausible that these remain permanently out of whack.

I think you see this dynamic in action more with the commission vs EU parliament dynamic than you do with national government vs national parliament because in many countries there are, in practice, consequences to the government losing a vote in parliament, so governments will generally mostly restrict themselves to bills that they think they can win. There are no such consequences in the EU system, so you see a lot of this.