Inflation has indeed been subject to such shocks over recent years, most notably the oil and commodity price collapse in 2014-15. This not only depressed the cost of imported energy, but also lowered global producer prices more generally. ECB analysis suggests that the global component in the underperformance of euro area inflation in recent years was considerable.
In 2015-16, around two thirds of the deviation of euro area headline inflation from a model-based mean can be accounted for by global shocks linked to oil prices.