Many Austrians feel their way of life is under threat

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Una Isola felice, a happy island, is how Pope Paul VI called Austria in 1971 during a visit of the country's then president to the Vatican. In later years the pope's dictum became Die Insel der Seligen, the island of the blessed, to describe the picturesque Alpine republic that is garlanded with a generous welfare state, the Habsburg empire's rich cultural heritage, Kaiserschmarrn and other scrumptious foods, and some of the finest classical music in the world.

The inexorable rise of Austria's far-right Freedom Party which, the polls say, is now the country's strongest party by a long chalk, suggests that a sizeable chunk of Austrians fear that their way of life, prosperity and safety are under threat. Yet Austrians remain the most smugly satisfied with life in the European Union (eu), whereas their big German neighbours are the second-saddest, according to a newly published survey by Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency. Austrians rated their satisfaction with life in 2022 on average at 7.9 on a scale of one to ten, compared with just 6.5 for their big German neighbours and 5.6 for Bulgarians, the gloomiest of the lot. Poles, Romanians and Finns, with a score of 7.7, are joint second-jolliest after Austria.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline "The Viennese are still waltzing"

From the January 27th 2024 edition

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