You forgot to mention that the commission can also bypass the parliament to get laws approved, in the emergency procedure the commission and the council approve legislation.

But both are still filled by people appointed by democratic governments of member states.

And still that only applies to handling "a financial crisis" by giving aid to member state(s) and needs qualified majority (85% in this case so 24 out of 28 votes in both the Council and Commission). Basically how the Council has been setup is that you usually need a unanimous or 20 out of 28 votes to get anything done.

I don't think that's true. It applies to everything they consider emergency unless I'm misreading. Also: they decide what constitutes an emergency. They could use this for any reason, for anything. They ARE using it, as a threat, for the econimic crisis.

Those votes are only necessary for things like new member additions (which are indeed mostly what the council is for). I think this requires a mere majority, which presumably is equivalent to having a majority in the commission in practice.

But even if it were true, and the only power they have is to fund or defund member states' governments ... that's not a real limitation to their power.

And lastly, if all the power is in the hands of the executive, as it is in Europe, that does not constitute a modern democratic state.