Netherlands: The Irish are the happiest people in Europe, the Turks hardly feel European, and the Dutch and Scandinavians are the most modern world citizens - these are some of the results from the Atlas of European Values launched yesterday in the Netherlands, the culmination of a 25-year study of European values.
"The Irish are still the happiest Europeans but it may not last too long because prosperity has created enormous expectations and the present generation will never have known how difficult it was for those before them; they will just expect more and, if they don't get it, there will be disappointment and unhappiness," a research team member said.
In the Hague after receiving the first copy of the atlas of opinions and feelings of Europeans expressed through 200 maps and graphs compiled by teams of researchers in 33 countries around Europe, Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende said: "It doesn't surprise me too much that the Irish are the happiest Europeans; after all, they have achieved economic miracles and are among the highest achievers." He said the Dutch were also "pretty happy" but added that Ireland's enormous growth was "living proof of the success of Europe".
Leading Dutch sociologist Prof Wil Arts, who contributed to the unique atlas, said: "It's said that being rich doesn't make people happy, but Ireland's experience shows that it definitely helps, and quite a lot."
Researchers at the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands, who analysed data collected since 1981, concluded that Ireland's prosperity was based on EU membership, becoming the US gateway country to Europe, and innovative educational and taxation policies encouraging industrial growth from outside.
According to the atlas, Irish people's views on a number of controversial social issues have shifted over the past 20 years. A more lenient view on drugs, homosexuality and casual sex - in contrast to southern European countries - has emerged. But Ireland is still scoring under four out of 10 on general acceptance of homosexuality. And just three out of 10 people approve of euthanasia, with an equal rating for tolerance of casual sex.
A one-night stand is still only acceptable to youth in northern Europe, with Iceland the most permissive and Malta the least tolerant of casual sexual encounters.
Whereas in the Republic most people defined injustices in society and being unlucky as reasons for poverty in Northern Ireland, there was a stronger feeling in the North that fellow countrymen lived in need because of laziness and lack of willpower.
The Danes, Swedes and Dutch scored highest on a modernity score which included personal freedom, tolerance and emancipation, with Ireland averaging somewhere in the middle. While the citizens of Slovakia, Belarus and Moldova felt bribery was justified, the Danes, Maltese and Turks said it could never be condoned.
Introducing the atlas yesterday, Prof Wim van de Donk of Tilburg University said it showed intriguing and subtle differences, that Europeans massively supported democracy, human dignity, tolerance, responsibility and solidarity. "It produced more hopeful results than referenda," he said.
But a much more worrying message was the much lower degrees of confidence in political and religious institutions compared with 20 years ago.