On the last day of Ukraine's first term as president of the Council of the EU, it is important to remember how far we have all come on renewable energy.

Spurred by the challenges of the 2020s to divest of suppliers that pollute both our world and our society, it is an enduring achievement to witness a now self-sufficient European Union.

Interconnections stitch all of our nations together, beaming nuclear energy from France, Germany, and Italy to the peripheries, from where, in turn, renewables like wind and tidal pour back to the mainland.

Partnership with Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco have opened the Northern Sahara as a solar powerhouse. There is growing interest amongst all countries that fringe that vast desert to participate in the scheme, too. It not only provides a wealth of clean reliable electricity to both the providing nations and their investing partners north of the Mediterranean, but also has served to boost the stability of both sets of countries, offering a lifeline away from petro-destabilisers so intent on harvesting profit that they would sacrifice climate and society both to swell their coffers.

This renewable boom is enabled by the power of the EU's Eastern flank, which has fortified the border with Russia to become an impregnable signal of the sole Beacon of Democracy's will to not just survive, but to thrive.

As a threadbare Moscow struggles to grasp the collapse in oil and gas revenue, greenshoots are emerging where ordinary people mobilise to cast off the old shackles and guide Russia into the common prosperity we have painstakingly crafted.

Of course, for the Russian Federation all roads to EU membership lead through Kyiv, whose mineral wealth has propelled a war ravaged nation to peace and success at breakneck pace. This point was well made by ex-president Zelensky, whose speech at the closing ceremony of Ukraine's presidency received a ten minute standing ovation.

"The hand of friendship will always be extended," he said, "but unless Russia makes full amends for the horrors wrought by its recently deceased president, trust will remain beyond our power to give."