In a short period of time we have witnessed the appointment of the new Prime Minister of Greece, Lucas Papademos, as well as the resignation in Italy of Silvio Berlusconi and his replacement by the economist and former European Commissioner, Mario Monti. The new leaders have in common a markedly technocratic profile and their arrival in power seems to be the result of an imposition by the hard core of the European Union. Voices are raised criticizing the lack of democratic legitimacy of such appointments, which do not respond to the will of the electorate expressed at the ballot box but to the confidence they inspire in the markets and international institutions. There are those who label consider such maneuvers to be typical of a new enlightened despotism, which only evidence an ever greater distancing of the citizens from the functioning of the system.

From a purely formal point of view, in terms of compliance with the rules of the game, the appointment of the new leaders of Greece and Italy seems irreproachable. What characterizes parliamentary systems, as is also the case in Spain, is that citizens do not directly elect the President of the Executive, there is no absolute separation of powers. The President of the Government does not owe his position to a direct election of the electorate but to the members of the congress of the Deputies who give him their confidence in the vote of investiture. Certainly, the legislative elections serve in the internship, as we have had the opportunity to verify this very week, for the election of the President of the Government, inasmuch as since the first democratic elections, whoever has won the elections has formed the Government. However, as the confidence of the congress of the Deputies is necessary, there may be certain situations in which the President changes without the need to hold new elections, such as in the case of a successful motion of censure, in which the proposed candidate will be deemed to have the confidence of the House, or in the case of the resignation of the President, which will give rise to a new vote of investiture.

Despite their formal legitimacy, the appointment of the new ministers in Greece and Italy has a certain character of external imposition. It is very relevant that Papandreou's fall was precipitated precisely by his advertisement of call a referendum to consult the citizens of his country on the bailout plan. Certainly, the status that Europe is experiencing is exceptional, with a prolonged status of economic crisis in which the foundations of the welfare state seem to be tottering, the gravity of which is worsening in Greece and Italy as a result of the high level of indebtedness and the lack of reforms. Only from this point of view of the exceptional nature of the context can it be justified that, outside the electoral body, people with a markedly technical character, apparently lacking in political profile .

In ancient Rome, during the Republic, it was foreseen that a dictator could exceptionally be appointed to act in cases of special gravity, assuming all the powers of the Republic without being subject to control. The dictator was elected by a consul on the order of the Senate and assumed his function for a period of six months, which could not be extended. For many years this possibility was used very restrictively. Later, when power began to accumulate in the hands of a single person for prolonged periods of time, as during the Dictatorship of Sulla or that of Julius Caesar, the republican institutions became a mere façade. It is therefore necessary that certain extraordinary decisions taken within the countries of the European Union respond effectively to this character of exceptionality and limitation in time. The democratic substance of parliamentary systems cannot be emptied in such a way that citizens are increasingly excluded from participating in decision-making or, at least, from the possibility of electing the decision-makers.