The Impact of Western Sanctions on Global Supply Chains and the Green Transition: The Case of EV Battery Manufacturing in South Korea and the EU

This chapter analyses the impact of Western sanctions against Russia and China on strategic value chains in the EU and in South Korea. Sanctions do not only hit target states, but also spill-over across global supply chain networks, industries, and markets, with unforeseen consequences for the EU’s mission to strengthen its open strategic autonomy and industrial development plans to re-localise value chains for the production of critical products, such as EV batteries, semi-conductors, and critical raw materials (e.g. lithium, neon and palladium), as well as for South Korea’s strategy of lowering dependence on China’s supply chains. The main contribution of the paper is a finding that under the pressures of economic sanctions many governments and businesses, i.e. ‘third parties’, are caught in between. This chapter will explore the effect of sanctions on energy security and the transition into net zero target, by drawing on the impact of sanctions on the development of the EV batteries segment in the electric car manufacturing (battery electric vehicle, or BEV) in the EU and South Korea – two cases that display some notable parallels. Current trends in EV batteries and in electric car manufacturing demonstrate how economic sanctions undermine ambitious plans for the transition to greener energy in Europe, and in Asia.