het heeft iets geleidelijks en iets stiekems, als ik het goed lees...

The years following the 1986 Single European Act witnessed a steady expansion of the EU’s “competencies”, i.e. the areas where the EU’s institutions exercise authority. To put a halt to this “competency creep,” EU leaders set up the famous ‘three pillars’ in the Maastricht Treaty.
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/245

This would greatly extend the power of the Court of Justice, which one of its judges once characterised as "a court with a mission" - that mission being to extend the powers of the EU as widely as possible by means of the case law of a Court that has become notorious for "competency creep".
http://www.pana.ie/idn/110907.html