The Discreet Autocracy

European elites reject dictatorship as a democratic emergency instrument — it sounds dangerous. But autocracy, discreetly packaged in the consensus circle, they accept. No Cincinnatus, please. But the informal Caesar is welcome.

I. The Night Europe Chose Its Commission President

On 2 July 2019, the heads of state and government of the EU agreed, after days of negotiations, on Ursula von der Leyen as candidate for the office of President of the European Commission. The agreement came in the night, on the margins of a summit, as a compromise between France, Germany and the Eastern European member states — after the originally intended lead candidate, Frans Timmermans, had foundered on the resistance of Poland and Hungary.

Von der Leyen had not been a lead candidate of any party in the European elections. European citizens had not voted for her — they had had no opportunity to vote for or against her. The European Parliament had announced the Spitzenkandidat principle some years earlier as a democratic innovation: the candidate of the strongest group should automatically become Commission President. The heads of government ignored this principle in a single night.

The Parliament confirmed von der Leyen by 383 to 327 votes — nine votes above the necessary majority. It was the narrowest confirmation in the history of the office. Many members of parliament voted for her, not because they considered her suitable, but because the alternative — no Commission President — seemed worse.

The procedure was legal. It conformed to the letter of the treaties. But democratic — in the sense of: citizens choose the person who leads the most powerful executive institution in Europe — it was not.

II. The Pattern: Monti, Draghi, the Eurogroup

Von der Leyen is no isolated case. She is the best-known example of a systemic pattern.

In November 2011, at the height of the European debt crisis, Mario Monti was appointed Italian Prime Minister — without election, as a technocrat government, with the explicit mandate to implement the reforms demanded by European institutions. He had not been elected. He had no democratic mandate. He had a European mandate — which is something different.

In February 2021, Mario Draghi, former President of the European Central Bank, was likewise appointed Italian Prime Minister without election — by President Mattarella, at the invitation of all major parties, with the mandate to manage the pandemic economic crisis. Citizens were not asked. The situation required someone the markets, the EU and the partners trusted. Draghi was that person. That he had no democratic mandate was treated as a secondary matter.

The Eurogroup — the informal body of finance ministers of the eurozone states — has for years been taking binding economic policy decisions that affect millions of people. It has no legal basis in the EU treaties. It meets without public minutes. Its decisions are not democratically ratified — they are executed. The former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis described this precisely in his memoirs: in the Eurogroup there is no debate. There are positions that are communicated. Those who do not comply lose access to liquidity.

The EU’s democratic deficit is not a lack of institutions. It is a surplus of informal power that refuses to take democratic form — because form means control.

III. What a Legitimate Emergency Instrument Would Cost

The reason Europe has no institutionalised emergency instrument is not lack of reflection. It is lack of will. A legitimate emergency instrument — after the Roman model Machiavelli described — would require four things that are all inconvenient.

First, transparency: the crisis would have to be publicly defined as a crisis before the instrument is activated. That is politically costly — it means admitting that normal mechanisms have failed.

Second, defined powers: what may the emergency authority decide — and what may it not? That would have to be established in advance. That is institutionally uncomfortable, because it limits power.

Third, a time limit: the office ends automatically. There is no extension. That is politically difficult, because power, once transferred, is rarely returned voluntarily.

Fourth, accountability: after the mandate ends, a full public accounting must be given — of every decision, every intervention, every deviation from normal procedure. That is the condition under which Cincinnatus returned to his field: not as a hero evading scrutiny, but as a citizen submitting to it.

None of these four elements is present in European crisis management. Instead there are the nights in which compromises are negotiated. The informal bodies that take binding decisions. The technocrats appointed when democracy is too slow. The substance of power without the form of legitimation.

IV. The Paradox of the Discreet Autocracy

That is the real paradox: European elites are not opposed to concentration of power. They are opposed to visible concentration of power. Dictatorship as a legitimate emergency instrument — transparent, time-limited, accountable — they reject, because it would make power concentration visible — and therefore controllable. The discreet autocracy remains invisible — and therefore uncontrollable.

Instead they prefer the discreet autocracy: the same concentration of power, but without public definition, without defined powers, without time limit and without accountability. The Eurogroup decides — but it is not an official body. Draghi governs — but he was not elected. Von der Leyen leads the most powerful institution in Europe — but no citizen voted directly for her.

The form is absent. The substance — concentrated power taking extraordinary decisions — is the same. They have the autocracy, but they do not call it that. This is no less dangerous to democracy than a openly declared state of emergency. It is more dangerous — because it is invisible.

V. Ursula von der Leyen — Product, Not Perpetrator

It would be wrong to hold Ursula von der Leyen personally responsible for this system. She is its product, not its cause. She accepted an invitation the system extended to her. That she accepted the invitation is no moral failing — it is human behaviour in a system that produces such invitations.

The question is not who the person is who holds the office. The question is why the procedure is such that it brings this kind of person to this office — and why nobody changes the system, even though the legitimacy deficits have been known for years.

The answer is the same as with the Anti-Machiavelli: the structure produces the result. The people acting within this structure act rationally — according to the incentives the structure sets. Those who do not change the structure want the result.

VI. What Citizens Feel

The citizens of Europe mostly cannot name the democratic deficit. They do not know the Spitzenkandidat principle, the Eurogroup, the subtleties of the procedure for appointing the Commission President. But they feel the consequence: the sense that decisions are being made about them without asking them. That the people who decide about their lives were not chosen by them. That accountability cannot be demanded, because it is unclear who is accountable.

This feeling is not irrational. It is the correct perception of a real situation. And it explains why the EU repeatedly loses popular votes — in France 2005, the Netherlands 2005, Ireland 2008, Brexit 2016. Citizens are not rejecting Europe. They are rejecting the procedure by which Europe decides about them.

VII. The Circle to the Democracy Crisis

Here the circle closes back to Cincinnatus and Caesar. Democracy produces autocrats because it has no legitimate emergency instrument. But that is only half the story. The other half: the elites of democracy already practise informal power concentration — without transparency, without time limit, without accountability. They have the substance of the emergency mechanism — but not its form.

That is the actual signal citizens receive. Not: democracy is too slow and needs an emergency instrument. But: the elites already have the emergency instrument — for themselves, in a small circle, invisibly. The question is then no longer whether one wants power concentration. The question is whose power concentration one wants.

And if the answer is: not that of the elites who did not ask me — then the path to the plebiscitarily legitimised autocrat is shorter than the elites believe.

Those who wonder why people choose Caesar — here is the answer: they have seen how the elites already practise it. Only more discreetly. And those who reject dictatorship as a democratic emergency instrument should not be surprised by autocracy.