I’m not even going to comment on the EU being « authoritarian ».

As one small and simple example, ask the people in Niger if it doesn't feel authoritarian that they can't enjoy the material wealth of their country because France steals 80% of their Uranium, paying peanuts for it. Go ask France's former colonies how democratic it is for a foreign central bank to control their currency, artificially keeping it favorable for France to steal Uranium for peanuts. How nice it is for them that the material wealth that should be making their country rich, is going to subsidize the electrical bill of someone's fancy apartment in Paris.

Go ask people who live near mines owned by Swedish mining companies how much those companies bribed the local governments to allow them to pollute the fuck out of their countries, deregulate the fuck out of their labor laws, etc. See if they consider this democracy.

Go ask someone in Libya how democratic it was when a government that provided them with the best standards of living in the whole continent was bombed and removed from power because some French and American folks decided that it was time for his counter-hegemonic ass to go. And left a fucking mess of warlords and civil war in his place. Super democratic I guess. Not authoritarian at all.

The EU can only maintain itself relatively open and prosperous by fucking over their former colonies in ways their population mostly ignore. If your democracy at home depends on autocracy and destruction elsewhere to be maintained, how is it real democracy?