« Happiest place to live » is only because we are still living on the wealth accumulated during our glorious centuries. We are still feeding on the remains of those beast, which thankfully for us includes things like buildings and infrastructures that cannot easily loose value, and landscapes that look good enough to attract tourists to feed us.
Think about how much better EU was compared to the rest of the world in the 20th century, or the 19th or 18th (not to account for wars, of course).
21th century is likely to become the time were EU stops being the best place to live at all.
