BRUSSELS (AFP) — Twelve-month inflation rose to 1.6 percent in May across the 16 countries which share the euro currency, up from 1.5 percent in April, official figures showed on Monday. The figures produced by the European Union's Eurostat data agency showed that inflation in the common currency area is at its highest since December 2008. Eurozone inflation has risen, almost continuously, from 0.5 percent last November as the bloc emerges from the worst recession since the 1930s. The latest increase moves the figures closer to the European Central Bank's core economic target of inflation at close to but below two percent.