The EU’s statistics agency (Eurostat) published a new ranking of the community’s happiest countries. Austria finished first with the best score of 7.9 points out of ten when it comes to its “quality of life indicators”. 

Poland finished second with 7.7, along with Romania and Finland. Bulgaria turned out to have the lowest score, with only 5.6 points on the whole index of life satisfaction. The survey was conducted among all the 27 member states. 

Eurostat explained that the survey’s aim is “to capture trends in the subjective well-being of European citizens” and that “EU citizens tended to be quite satisfied with their life in general, reporting an average of 7.1 points out of 10”. This concerns some of the EU’s largest countries including France, Italy, and Spain. 

The publication sheds light on factors such as financial stability, education, and level of education among others. All of these turn out to have a decisive impact on the citizens’ overall satisfaction with their lives,  material wealth being only a smaller part of the larger picture.  

Eurostat’s experts noticed the complexity of the relation between economic welfare and the subjective well-being of people among the 27 member states. Interestingly, Germany turned out to be one of the unhappiest countries in the poll, with only 6.5 points. In 2021, Germany was at the EU’s average at 7.1 points. 

Image: Facebook (Flavor of Poland)

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen