Data extracted in April 2025
Planned article update: December 2025
Highlights
Around 80% of enterprises experienced global value chain (GVC) shocks between 2021 and 2023.
Among enterprises experiencing GVC shocks, 75% reported a moderate level of impact, and 57% reported a high level.
The most frequently reported GVC shocks were rising input costs related to energy (63% of enterprises), increases in other input costs (59%), and limitations related to COVID-19 (57%).
The 3 most common strategies to mitigate GVC shocks were boosting digitalisation, nearshoring within the EU, and prioritising trusted suppliers, each reported by 34% of enterprises.
This article explores how recent events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and the energy crisis, have affected the organisation and resilience of GVCs within the European Union (EU).
The article covers the topics below.
Enterprises reported the following key constraints and transformation drivers:
- Increased costs of raw materials related to energy
- Increased costs of raw materials (except energy and transportation)
- Problems with transportation capacity, time, and costs
- Supply shortages in existing supply chains
- Constraints related to COVID-19
- Transformation drivers related to environmental policies
- EU sanctions on Russia
Enterprises adopted several strategies as a response to the encountered GVC shocks and limitations:
- Digitalisation: increasing the digitalisation of the processes within GVCs
- Resilience over cost: focusing on reliable suppliers and expanding the size of inventories
- Regionalisation: nearshoring[1] and farshoring[2] business functions
- Expansion: expanding existing supplier networks
- Backsourcing: returning business functions from abroad to the home economy
The results in this article present the outcomes of one module of the GVC survey 2021-23 conducted across 23[3] European countries, covering enterprises with more than 50 employees in NACE sections B–N. The survey period spans 2021 to 2023, with the first provisional results covering 67 197 enterprises (25% of all EU enterprises with more than 50 persons employed) in 11 EU countries (representing 28% of the total EU population).
Complete data are expected by the end of 2025.
The findings in this article will be updated upon receipt of all country data.
Overview
Besides the main points already mentioned above, the businesses reported the following issues affecting their supply chains:
- The COVID-19 pandemic was a frequently reported shock (57%), primarily affecting GVC operations in 2021 and 2022.
- Geopolitical tensions, particularly from 2022 onwards, were identified by over two-thirds of enterprises as a significant disruption factor.
- The European energy crisis drove sharp input-cost inflation: 63% of enterprises reported higher costs related to energy, while 59% faced elevated costs for inputs other than energy and transport.
- Supply shortages of raw materials, intermediate, and final goods were reported by 52% of enterprises, peaking at 66% in Austria and 64% in Portugal.
- Transportation constraints (capacity, time, or cost) affected 53% of enterprises, with peripheral and manufacturing-heavy countries most exposed.
- Changes in environmental regulations acted as transformation drivers, affecting the GVCs of 38% of EU enterprises.
- One third of enterprises reported that their GVCs were affected by the EU sanctions on Russia.
- Enterprises favoured resilience over cost-efficiency: 34% increased digitalisation, and 28% boosted inventory levels to cushion future shocks.
- Nearshoring within the EU (34%) outpaced farshoring (23%), with the highest rate observed in Portugal (51%) and the lowest in Bulgaria (21%) and Ireland (19%).
- Supplier consolidation was prevalent, with 34% of firms reducing their supplier base versus 21% expanding it, highlighting a shift towards trusted partners.
Impact of GVC shocks and reorganisation of GVCs
Between 2021 and 2023, enterprises in the EU were affected by a combination of external shocks that disrupted GVCs and structural drivers that prompted their transformation. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered lockdowns and transport bottlenecks, leading to a 9.4% decline in exports and an 11.6% drop in imports in 2020 – the deepest slump since 2000 (source article International trade in goods). This shock was followed by an energy crisis triggered by the Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine: gross available energy in the EU fell by 4.5% and natural gas consumption by 13.3% in 2022, amid an import dependency rate of 62.5% and record-high prices for non-household consumers (source article Natural gas price statistics). Concurrently, economic sanctions on Russia eliminated its coal exports to the EU by Q4 2022 and reduced its share of liquefied natural gas EU imports between 2022 and 2024 (source article EU imports of energy products - latest_developments).
Quantitatively, the magnitude of these shocks is striking; 79.5% of enterprises reported that one or more shocks or limitations impacted their GVCs or that they reorganised their GVCs during 2021-2023, with 52% experiencing supply shortages of raw materials, intermediate, and final goods. Energy-related costs rose for 63% of enterprises, while 59% faced higher expenses for other inputs. Transportation constraints (capacity, time or cost) affected 53% of enterprises. On the policy front, 57% of enterprises reported COVID-19 measures and 33% of enterprises reported that EU sanctions on Russia affected their GVCs. Finally, over half of all enterprises (57%) reported either a high impact of GVC shocks or that they had significantly reorganised some parts of their GVCs to respond to these shocks[4].
Figure 1 presents the percentages of enterprises whose GVCs were impacted by constraints or underwent reorganisation, by country, for the period 2021-2023. A moderate level of impact or extent was reported by 75.1% of enterprises, while 56.7% reported a high level of impact or extent.
EU countries with large manufacturing sectors and high energy import dependency, such as Portugal (90.5%), Austria (88.3%) and the Netherlands (84.6%), reported the highest shares of affected enterprises. In contrast, more service-oriented economies like Lithuania (56.5%) and Bulgaria (59.7%) reported the lowest shares, indicating comparatively greater resilience.
These findings highlight the widespread challenges EU enterprises faced in maintaining their GVCs between 2021 and 2023. While the scale of disruption varied by country, the data point to a clear need for continued investment in resilience, adaptability and strategic planning to prepare for future shocks.
Constraints and transformation drivers affecting GVCs in the EU
GVCs in the EU have been subject to varied constraints, including supply shocks, cost inflation, transport disruptions and regulatory measures, all of which have tested the resilience of companies. The constraints covered by the data in this article include increased energy-related input costs, higher non-energy input costs, COVID-19-related limitations, transport capacity and cost issues, supply shortages of key inputs, and EU sanctions on Russia. In addition, the data includes transformation drivers linked to environmental policy measures. This section presents the share of enterprises affected by these constraints.
Energy price volatility was the greatest constraint in the EU, with 62.8% of enterprises reporting higher energy-related input costs (Figure 2)[5]. Elevated costs for non-energy inputs affected 59.3% of enterprises, while 56.9% reported COVID-19-related limitations, echoing a 9.4% slump in EU goods exports in 2020 (source article International trade in goods). Transport bottlenecks impacted 52.4% of enterprises, while 51.7% reported supply shortages in existing chains. Transformation drivers linked to environmental policies affected 38.3% of EU enterprises, adding further layers of complexity to the disruptions already facing GVCs. Interestingly, the fewest enterprises reported environmental policy changes as highly impactful (7.4%).
One of the most widespread and immediate GVC and supply chain shocks reported by enterprises was the shortage of key inputs across supply chains. Data on supply shortages capture the share of enterprises reporting difficulties in procuring essential inputs, such as raw materials, intermediate goods, and final goods, which lead to logistical bottlenecks and policy-induced disruptions.
In Austria, 65.7% of enterprises reported supply chain shortages, followed by Portugal at 63.4% and Italy at 55.9%, while service-oriented Ireland reported the lowest share at 25.0%. On average, 51.7% of enterprises across the surveyed countries faced shortages of raw materials, intermediate, and final goods, underlining widespread strains on EU supply chains (Figure 3). The wide variation between manufacturing-heavy economies and more service-oriented ones highlights how sectoral composition and energy dependence shape vulnerability to input shortages.
Raw material cost pressures are broken down into energy-related and non-energy input increases across EU countries, illustrating how enterprises navigated volatile markets in 2021-23.
Portuguese enterprises most frequently reported increased energy-related input costs as a constraint, with 79.7% indicating this issue, followed by 74.9% citing increased costs for other inputs. In contrast, Irish enterprises reported the lowest shares for both categories, at 31.7%. On average, 62.8% of enterprises reported higher energy-related input costs, and 59.3% reported elevated costs for other inputs (Figure 4). These pronounced cost shocks, driven by surging energy prices and supply-chain bottlenecks, underscore the need for enterprises to diversify energy sources and secure critical raw materials, which is in line with Eurostat’s findings on industrial producer price volatility.
Efficient transport connectivity is essential for company operations. Bottlenecks in capacity, timing and cost can severely disrupt the movement of goods within the single market. Problems with transport capacity, time or cost were reported by 63.0% of enterprises in Portugal (the highest share), while just 25.2% of Irish enterprises reported such issues; the EU average stood at 52.4% (Figure 5). Countries with heavy manufacturing activity and long supply routes, such as Italy (60.9%) and Austria (59.9%), also faced pronounced transport challenges, whereas service-oriented economies like Ireland exhibited greater resilience. The high impact of transport-related constraints highlights the need for targeted EU transport policy measures to enhance multimodal infrastructure and improve cross-border logistics.
Environmental policy-related measures act as drivers of transformation in GVCs. Designed to align trade and production with the EU’s climate and environmental objectives, these measures are reshaping sourcing strategies and supplier relationships. According to the GVC survey data, 38.3% of EU enterprises reported having to adapt their GVCs in response to such measures, with the highest share observed in Portugal (49.1%) and the lowest in Ireland (20.8%).
Policy-related factors contributed to the complexity of managing global supply chains for EU firms during the period. Some of these measures had short-term effects on firm operations, as they were introduced in response to urgent public health, and geopolitical priorities and are expected to support more resilient, sustainable, and secure supply chains in the long term.
COVID-19-related limitations affected an average of 56.9% of enterprises, peaking in Austria at 69.3% and dipping to 33.0% in Lithuania (Figure 6), while 33.1% of enterprises reported that their GVCs were affected by EU sanctions on Russia, the most in Portugal (39.4%), and the least in Ireland (14.8%). However, it is worth noting that sanctions on Russia took effect around March 2022, covering slightly more than half of the observed period.
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With sanctions on Russia identified as a significant source of GVC disruption, Figure 7 examines the spectrum of their direct impact on EU enterprises’ GVCs. In this context, 40.4% of enterprises reported that sanctions did not apply to their operations, while 26.3% reported no impact. A further 23.3% experienced a moderate impact, and 10.0% experienced a very high impact, meaning that 1 in 3 enterprises faced at least moderate disruption related to EU sanctions on Russia. This distribution aligns with the observed 62% decline in EU exports to Russia and an 85% drop in imports between Q1 2022 and Q4 2024 following successive sanction packages. It highlights the disparate nature of sanction risk across sectors.
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These findings highlight the complex and multifaceted nature of the shocks that disrupted GVCs between 2021 and 2023. They also underscore the importance of resilience-building measures, as businesses had to navigate cost pressures, logistical challenges, and evolving policy environments.
Reorganisation of GVCs in response to business constraints
As previous figures illustrated, most EU businesses reported diverse constraints, ranging from supply shortages of raw materials and goods to rising energy and non-energy input costs and transport capacity bottlenecks and policy measures, including COVID-19 restrictions and Russia sanctions. To mitigate these challenges, companies adopted various reorganisation strategies between 2021 and 2023. They accelerated the digitalisation of GVC processes, forged new nearshore partnerships within the EU, prioritised their most reliable suppliers and built buffer inventories. Others explored farshoring and broader supplier network diversification, reflecting a multi-pronged approach to bolster resilience and maintain operational continuity.
Digitalisation emerged as the leading reorganisation strategy among EU enterprises, with 34.1% of them reporting an increase in digitalisation of GVC processes between 2021 and 2023, closely followed by nearshoring within the EU at 33.9% and a focus on the most reliable suppliers at 33.8% (Figure 8). Strategies of increased inventories were reported by 27.6% of enterprises, while 22.5% of enterprises engaged in farshoring outside the EU. Expanding existing supplier networks was the least common GVC reorganisation strategy at 20.9%. These figures underscore enterprises’ prioritisation of technology-driven and proximity-based strategies.
Most strategies were implemented to a moderate extent rather than a high extent. For example, 24.7% of enterprises increased digitalisation moderately, and 9.5% to a high extent. Nearshoring was implemented to a moderate extent by 27.8% of enterprises, compared with 6.3% to a high extent. On the other hand, farshoring (19.1% moderate, 4.0% high) and expanding supplier networks (18.5% moderate, 3.1% high) were the least common strategies. The data suggest that while a significant share of enterprises took steps to reorganise their GVCs in response to constraints encountered, most did so cautiously and at a moderate scale. This indicates a general tendency towards incremental adaptation rather than comprehensive restructuring, reflecting both uncertainty in the global environment and the practical limits of rapid operational change.
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As part of the GVC reorganisation efforts, many enterprises adjusted the geographic distribution of their suppliers to reduce exposure to external shocks. Enterprises moved to secure their supply routes and reduce exposure to distant shocks; 33.9% reported engaging in nearshoring, compared with 22.5% pursuing farshoring (Figure 9). Portugal (50.9%) and Latvia (48.6%) recorded the highest shares of enterprises moving closer to the EU market, while Ireland (18.9%) reported the lowest share. In every country, nearshoring rates exceeded farshoring rates, reflecting a clear trend towards regionalisation of supply chains. The gap between nearshoring and farshoring was particularly pronounced in Slovakia, Portugal and Latvia, suggesting that enterprises in these countries were especially motivated to reduce geopolitical and logistical risks by sourcing closer to home.
Following the sourcing shifts shown in Figure 9, enterprises have also rebalanced their supplier networks, with consolidation emerging as the dominant approach. In Portugal, 50.5% of enterprises reported reducing their supplier base, compared with 33.7% that expanded networks; Latvia (41.4% vs 27.3%) and Italy (40.0% vs 20.4%) mirrored this trend, while Ireland reported the lowest rates (14.2% reduction vs 10.3% expansion). On average, 33.8% of enterprises reduced the number of suppliers by focusing on the most reliable ones, against 20.9% seeking new partnerships, indicating a strategic focus on trusted supplier relationships. Notably, the Netherlands recorded nearly balanced figures (23.3% reduction and 20.6% expansion), suggesting a dual approach to managing risk and opportunity (Figure 10).
On the other hand, backsourcing remained rare, with an average of only 1.9% of enterprises returning functions to their own operations and 1.7% to another domestic enterprise between 2021 and 2023 (Figure 11). Malta (6.8% returned in-house; 5.9% to domestic partners) and Lithuania (4.8%; 5.5%) led this trend, followed by Denmark (4.0%; 3.9%) and Ireland (3.0%; 3.5%). In most EU countries, fewer than 2% of enterprises reported returning business functions from abroad, with Latvia (0.7%; 0.2%) and the Netherlands (0.6%; 0.2%) at the lower end. These low rates reflect the complexity, cost and strategic considerations of relocating specialised functions.
In parallel with reshoring and supplier adjustments, companies also overhauled internal processes to cushion against GVC or supply chain shocks. Across the EU, 34.1% of companies increased the digitalisation of their value-chain processes, while 27.6% boosted stocks and inventories to buffer against supply-chain disruptions (Figure 12).
Portugal led these efforts, with 51.7% of enterprises reporting an increase in the digitalisation of their GVC operations and 39.8% of enterprises raising inventory levels, followed by Austria (45.0%; 35.5%) and the Netherlands (43.4%; 30.2%). Conversely, Bulgaria (15.2%; 16.2%) and Ireland (19.9%; 15.9%) reported the lowest uptake, reflecting their service-oriented profiles and shorter supply chains. Although digitalisation was the preferred strategy overall, Latvia (22.2% digitalisation vs 28.8% increased stocks), Lithuania (16.5% vs 17.0%), and Bulgaria (15.2% vs 16.2%) relied more heavily on traditional inventory-building, highlighting how sectoral and national factors shape resilience choices.
This combination of technology investment and buffer-stock strategies emphasises a complementary approach: digital tools enhance visibility and agility, while higher inventories provide a safety net against unexpected disruptions.
The data in this article demonstrate that EU enterprises faced a broad spectrum of supply-chain constraints between 2021 and 2023, ranging from pandemic lockdowns and energy-market shocks to transport bottlenecks and evolving policy measures. These constraints highlight the complex nature of disruptions in GVCs. Country-level variations reveal how sectoral structure, energy dependency, and geographic position can shape enterprise vulnerability, with manufacturing-intensive economies generally more exposed than service-oriented ones.
Enterprises responded to GVC shocks with a mix of resilience-driven reorganisation strategies, most notably accelerating the digitalisation of GVC processes, forging partnerships within the single market and consolidating supplier bases while building buffer inventories. The concurrent adoption of multiple approaches underscores that no single strategy is sufficient; digital tools, regional sourcing, and trusted supplier relationships form a robust defence against future shocks.
The way forward
This article will be updated in late 2025 once data from 22 EU countries and one EEA country (Norway) become available[6], providing a comprehensive picture of the impacts of GVC shocks and reorganisation strategies. Eurostat will continue to improve GVC statistics in subsequent survey rounds by incorporating emerging shocks, enterprise responses, and enhanced microdata-linkage methodologies to deliver more granular insights.
The next GVC survey will cover the period 2024-26. It is set to introduce new topics, such as the impacts of digital transition, sustainability and circular-economy metrics, and resilience to geopolitical shocks (e.g. introduction of import tariffs), to reflect the latest developments shaping value-chain organisation. It is important to strengthen policy-monitoring frameworks to assess the effectiveness of resilience and diversification measures, ensuring that future GVC statistics remain a cornerstone for evidence-based economic policymaking and a robust single market.
Source data for tables and graphs
Context
To stay competitive, enterprises increasingly organise their production globally in GVCs by breaking up their value chains into smaller parts supplied by a growing number of providers located worldwide. These GVCs comprise the full range of activities required to bring a product or service from conception through the different phases of production, delivery to final consumers and disposal after use. GVC statistics can help measure organisational and spatial patterns in global and regional value chains and monitor their effects on employment, wages, value added, innovation, skills, enterprise survival and turnover. The GVC data are in high demand from statisticians, researchers and policymakers. From an EU policy perspective, such analysis provides crucial data on the movement of EU jobs to non-EU countries, dependency on foreign parts of the chain, and the EU’s integration into GVCs. Moreover, in the post-COVID-19 world, there are reports of a shortening of GVCs and a de-globalisation trend resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, statistics on GVC are necessary to support policies on trade, job sustainability and economic development.
To monitor evolving GVC patterns and enterprise responses to shocks, the GVC survey 2021-23 was launched under the triennial framework of the European Business Statistics Regulation 2019/2152 and the GVC Implementing Regulation 2022/918, covering enterprises across 22 EU countries. This article presents provisional findings from 11 EU countries, with final results expected by the end of 2025.
In the survey, respondents assessed their experiences by selecting one of 4 response options: not applicable, no impact or extent, moderate impact or extent, or high impact or extent. Most of the the figures shown reflect only those enterprises that reported a moderate or high impact or extent (also referred to as any impact or extent).
Footnotes
- Nearshoring refers to the practice of relocating business functions or sourcing partners to nearby or neighbouring countries, typically within the same region. ↑
- Farshoring involves sourcing or relocating business functions or sourcing partners to distant countries, often outside the region. ↑
- These are 22 EU countries (except CY, EE, HR, LU, and SI) and Norway. ↑
- Each responding enterprise was required to assess the level of impact separately for each of the 7 constraints analysed in this article. Since enterprises could attribute different levels of impact across multiple constraints, the shares of enterprises reporting a moderate or high impact are independent and therefore do not add up to a common total. ↑
- For Figures 2 and 8, the percentages shown represent the share of enterprises reporting a moderate or high impact for each individual constraint. In this case, enterprises were required to select only 1 level of impact per constraint – either ‘Not applicable’, ‘No impact’, ‘Moderate impact’ or ‘High impact’. The figures display the sum of the shares for moderate and high impact. These shares do not add up to 100%, as they exclude responses indicating ‘Not applicable’ or ‘No impact’. If all 4 response categories were shown, their combined total would reach 100% for each constraint. ↑
- Five EU countries have a derogation from collecting GVC data, since their total number of enterprises with 50 or more persons employed in sectors B-N is less than 1% of the EU total. These are Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Luxembourg, and Slovenia. ↑
Explore further
Other articles
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- International sourcing, business functions and global value chains
- Economic globalisation indicators
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