The Introduction

The European Union ( EU) began the year 2023 with an agenda of objectives and challenges conditioned by the war in Ukraine and its consequences. The impact of the conflict has highlighted the need to achieve energy independence, increase defence capabilities and advance in the area of asylum, areas in which the EU will have to continue taking important steps in the coming months in line with those adopted in 2022. In addition, the year 2023 marks the last stretch of the current European institutional cycle, before the European Parliament elections in May 2024, as well as the last year in which Next Generation EU funds will be available to Member States. With regard to Spain, its European policy will be determined by the exercise of the Presidency of the EU Council during the second semester of 2023. From this position, Spain assumes the responsibility of promoting the negotiations and achieving the necessary consensus on the EU priority work areas, such as the ecological transition, the digital transformation and the social agenda, among others. Likewise, the fifth Spanish presidency of the EU Council will coincide with a key moment in the implementation of the national recovery plans, since, as mentioned above, the assigned European resources must be fully committed by the end of 2023. With these perspectives and in a still uncertain and changing geopolitical context, this miscellaneous number 68/2023 of Deusto Journal of European Studies includes various contributions that address some of the most relevant challenges currently facing the EU, in particular, the climate and energy crisis. This first issue of 2023 also includes the usual chronicles of jurisprudence and current events in Europe signed by our faithful and valued collaborators, David Ordonez Solis and Beatriz Inarritu.