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Because USA is a federation with states that are about as big as European countries.
And state rights are systematically trumped by the federal government, and there is no reason to think the same won't happen in EU over time, if we make a similar power structure with a central government.
Germany is also a federation, that's their choice. Germany is based on being a country of one people originally. USA is not, and EU is also not a country of one people.
EU needs to respect the differences of the European countries to work, as a federation a federal government tend to push that aside if it becomes inconvenient.
A federation lacks balance of power between the states. Which is extremely obvious in USA.
Yes, true we must therefore build strong counter measures in this new European Federation. Its technically already a (co) Federation. But while we heed their mistakes we can prevent them.
A federation is generally supposed to protect state rights, problem is the power structure with a central government undermines that.
So I'm not sure it is possible to do except by NOT having a central government.
I also don't see the need for a central government or even any advantage of it. And it most definitely isn't necessary to achieve the political goals of more independence from USA. Since that is already working very well for EU with the current structure.
Of course there are solutions The principle of subsidiarity is one. Doing projects between states like you said are another for example. Problem is always that people be people, and they like power and money. And also there is little any "piece of paper" can do against dictators with guns. No piece of law will probably ever change that, I'm afraid.
Which is why centralizing power is generally a bad idea, making a federation a bad idea.