The report, released by the European Commission this week, confirms what many Germans had themselves long suspected - they are masters of moaning.
Asked if life would be better in 20 years time, just 20 per cent of Germans could bring themselves to agree. In happy-go-lucky Estonia, which topped the chart, 78 per cent of people look at the future through rose-tinted spectacles.
"Estonian citizens were the most optimistic," noted the report, which polled 25,000 people across the EU. "The Germans, on the other hand, were the least optimistic - only one in five expected that life in Germany would improve in the long-term."
Britons were revealed as a touch more sceptical about future prospects than the average European, 49 per cent of whom think life will be worse in 20 years.
The study focused on "quality of life" issues such as schooling and job prospects, age of retirement and whether people would be able to afford medical costs or even a reasonable place to live.
It found that while new members of the EU, mostly from central and eastern Europe, were mostly of the view that life would get better and better, established members of the EU were almost all miserable.
Of pre-2004 EU members only the Irish and the Swedes managed to look on the bright side of life, and even then, optimistic Scandinavians only squeaked a 51 per cent majority.
In fact, length of EU membership appears strongly related to a gloomy outlook. The six founder members of the EU occupy four or the five bottom spots on the future happiness chart, according the poll.
While Germans are the most mired in despair, they are closely followed by the Belgians, the Luxembourgers and the French.
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The "old" European countries, such as Germany and France, have enjoyed a very high standard of living in the past, which is declining. The real income in these contries goes down, as do the standards of healthcare and public education. The time until retirement goes up, holidays are taken away and real unemployment is still on the rise. There seems to be no way for the elected governments to tackle these problems.
On the other hand, new members like Estonia and Bulgaria are extremely poor to start with, and they have every reason to believe that the access to the EU labor market and subsidies will be beneficial to their standard of living.
Thus, we are probably not talking about how the population feels, here. We are talking about the best estimates the respective population can make about their future prosperity.