It “wasn’t supposed to”, but this is how it usually happens: the governments sell out the people. All I am saying is that it is not a proof of the EU’s intent, whatever it was.
I look at the three recent empires: the British, the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian. They were lead by bona fide monarchs. Various dictatorships that you mention are not empires, even though they are sometime called that way, incorrectly.
If it behaves like an empire, it is one. I already pointed out that the British Empire had a period when it was not led by a monarch.