Last Wednesday, the European Union went rogue. Its leaders stopped behaving like dull functionaries and started behaving like Chavista demagogues or Nasserite dictators.

Humiliated by the slow pace of their vaccination rollout and furious at being outperformed by Brexit Britain, Eurocrats tabled proposals to seize factories, commandeer lawfully purchased supplies, and tear up intellectual property rights. Such behavior would be shocking at any time, let alone amid a pandemic. Supporters of a law-based international system are left wondering whether to move the EU from the “Western” column into the “dodgy” column.