The share of Slovenians who are happy with their lives is above EU average, which is at 75%, shows the Eurobarometer survey presented by European Commission's Ljubljana office on Wednesday.

Compared to spring 2013, the share of Slovenians who are happy with their lives has dropped by 6 percentage points. 21% of the respondents from Slovenia said they were not happy with their lives.

"Yesterday the European Commission presented its winter forecast and it seems that the situation in Slovenia and elsewhere is improving. We probably do have a reason for optimism," the head of European Commission's office, Nataša Goršek Mencin told the press.

"A slight turn for the positive has been detected," Goršek Mencin said as she presented the survey on the perception of economic affairs conducted in November.

Assessing the economic situation, Slovenians turned out to be the most pessimistic of all EU nations in all aspects but the economy of the bloc in general.

Nearly all of the respondents, 94%, labelled Slovenia's economic situation bad and only 6% said that the situation in Slovenia was good. This result makes Slovenians one of the most pessimistic nations in the EU.

The results are even more grim as regards employment, as 97% of Slovenian respondents said the situation in the labour market was bad.

However, 54% of Slovenian respondents are optimistic about the future of the EU, compared to the EU average of 51%. The shares of those who are optimistic about the EU's future have increased slightly among Slovenians as well as in EU in general.

More than 40% of Slovenians also believe that the EU is on the right path to overcome the crisis and face modern global challenges, while 27% believe this is not the case.

Nearly two thirds of Slovenian respondents (65%) believe that the crisis has not yet bottomed out and the worst is yet to come, while EU average is at 50%. 29% of Slovenian believe the worst is behind.

With the European Parliament elections around the corner, the survey also asked respondents whether they felt like their vote counted. Only 28% of Slovenians said they believed their votes counted and 68% said it did not.

The survey was conducted by Eurobarometer between 2 and 17 November and it included 1,086 respondents from Slovenia.