Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost nothing is. Local politicians fail upwards to the EU (at least in Germany) or some private job, if they fail at all. Most of the time, you can do what you want, and the voters don’t care.
"and the voters don’t care." Then why did so many vote extremist anti EU? There just has been EU election in germany and the nationalist gained a lot. And none of the big parties otherwise said a clear no to that, so what could I do, except vote a small party against that, but too small to really do something? Voters care. But they see often no point in voting anymore.
Like the parties (again, here in Germany, don’t know enough about other countries) that manage to be even more corrupt? That actually supports my point. The biggest winners here were the anti-EU-pro-Russia AfD and the pro-EU CDU both with the biggest corruption scandals in recent years, and the CDU is even the party that sent the horror that is EU commission president von der Leyen.