Most Europeans have very strong bonds with their homeland; more than half of EU nationals indicated "very strong" ties (57%) and one-third expressed "rather strong" feelings. As for specific nationalities, the Danes came top at 87%, followed by the Greeks, Bulgarians and Irish.

Hungarians and Poles, often portrayed as being among the most patriotic, came 9th and 10th (in both cases 63% of those polled expressed "very strong" sentiments towards their homeland), followed by Estonia and Sweden.

According to the data from the Eurobarometer public opinion survey, part of a series conducted regularly on behalf of the European Commission, Czechs and Spaniards were not very enthusiastic in expressing patriotic sentiments (45% gave the "very strong" answer), while Belgium ranked last, with just 33% of those polled indicating "very strong" and 47% "rather strong" feelings.

Source: BBJ

Republished with permission