Eurotopics.net

The Irish constitution currently bans abortion. Today the Irish will vote on whether this should change. According to the polls, the advocates of liberalisation, which the government and parliament also support, have a slight lead. Commentators describe the mood before the vote and how this once deeply Catholic country is rethinking its values.

A year before the elections to the European Parliament the EU's approval ratings are at record levels: more than two-thirds of EU citizens believe their country benefits from EU membership, according to the new Eurobarometer survey. Europe's media are delighted with the results but also point out that the sun isn't shining everywhere.

A team of international investigators has officially pinned responsibility for the downing of flight MH-17 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014 on Russian troops. The Buk surface-to-air missile system was moved to a base in Kursk in Donbass shortly before the plane was downed, the team concluded. Commentators examine why this tragedy that cost 298 lives is still far from resolved.

The Spanish media are speculating on whether Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's People's Party (PP) will be able to stay in government. In the country's biggest corruption scandal in four decades, the so-called Gürtel case, Spain's High Court has ordered the party to pay a fine and given a number of party functionaries long prison sentences. The fact that Rajoy always played down the importance of the affair makes this judgement particularly explosive.

In a bid to secure more state support a group of parents of disabled children has been staging a sit-in at the Polish parliament for the past five weeks. A parents who cares for a disabled child receives 350 euros per month until the child reaches 18, after which the government support ends. The government is refusing to give in to demands for more funds, citing limited financial resources. Poland's press is divided over the issue.