Some of these findings run counter to popular perceptions in many parts of Europe, particularly in the UK.

On the refugee situation, for example, a December 2015 survey of 11,410 respondents in 28 European member states finds that 79 percent of EU citizens want a European response to the refugee crisis, strongly rejecting the idea of individual countries acting unilaterally. Some 70 percent also support the idea that those states which refuse to accept their share of the responsibility should receive less money from EU coffers.

The survey finds a big difference in attitude between the old and the new EU member states.  Some 85 percent of respondents in the old member states think that the burden of asylum seekers should be fairly distributed, but only 54 percent in the new member states support that view.

Around 80 percent of the respondents want to see the freedom to travel within the EU safeguarded, and consider the Schengen area as the European Union’s second most important achievement, just behind the internal market.

And whilst on the subject of the EU itself, an earlier study from July last year of 12,000 people across all member states found that 71 percent of the respondents say that if a referendum were held today they would vote in favour of continuing EU membership for their country. Controversially, 59 percent feel that the Union’s political and economic integration should be increased.

According to the survey’s respondents, the key tasks facing the EU are ensuring peace and security (61 percent), ensuring economic growth (53 percent), reducing social inequality (47 percent) and addressing the issue of immigration (42 percent).

As for Germany’s role within European policymaking, 55 percent said it is “good” or “very good” that the country takes on a leadership role. Of the six largest EU member states, the highest approval levels can be found in two countries bordering Germany: Poland (67 percent) and France (65 percent). The lowest approval levels are found in Italy (29 percent) and Spain (39 percent). Britain sits in the middle, at 48 percent.

Read more about Bertelsmann Stiftung here.

When the OECD ‘Better Life’ index asked Germans if they were satisfied with their life, 56 percent said yes, a rating which is three percent lower than the OECD average, despite the fact that Germans earn more, live longer and work significantly fewer hours per week than nearly all the other countries in the OECD.

It’s a finding echoed by the World Values Survey (WVS), which reports that only four out of the 26 countries it surveyed show downward happiness trends: Austria, Belgium, the UK and… Germany.

Whether you can read much into such surveys is debatable. The OECD study, for example, disagrees with the WVS in that it has Austria, Belgium and the UK all registering greater satisfaction than the average, but Germany does seem to be the Eeyore in the pack, registering low happiness ratings in both studies.

There are other indicators of dissatisfaction, too. Seemingly wilful and anarchistic arson attacks on cars are still commonplace both in Berlin and Hamburg, and where these used to be primarily aimed at big gas-guzzling luxury models, they now seem to be increasingly indiscriminate.  Some 350 have gone up in flames in Hamburg, and 400 in Berlin, so far this year.

But the news is not all bad for the German psyche. The just-published Glücksatlas Deutschland 2011, a study commissioned by Deutsche Post, concluded that, having gone through a big dip during the last half dozen years, the life-satisfaction of the man in the street is back up to 2001 levels. Twenty-and thirty-somethings are the happiest, and amongst the regions the people of Hamburg (location of all that car-burning) come out tops, with Thuringians at the bottom of the league, and Berliners bumping along the bottom down there with them.

Whether such studies are really useful or indeed accurate are a matter for debate – it could merely be that the Germans are more direct and honest in their answers than in other countries – but some lessons can be learned, particularly about regional differences. Perhaps the best news to emerge from the Glücksatlas is that there is no longer a big happiness inequality between the former east and the rest of the country, a gap which was always a cause for concern.

Overall, I might venture to suggest, being dissatisfied could in fact turn out to be an economic advantage, as it becomes an onward spur to bigger and better things. You don’t get to be smarter, richer, more powerful than everyone else by sitting back contentedly in the sun.