The European Union’s collective debt deal provides it with the tools to repair the economic damage from COVID-19, and in so doing, it will add another hard-to-remove layer of bricks to the construction of a united Europe. But to repair the EU is not the same thing as to protect it from future threats.

The U.K. has been vocal about the issue of human rights in China in recent weeks. But its own refusal to relinquish control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, in contravention of a recent opinion by the International Court of Justice, weakens its ability to lecture other states about human rights.