Under the auspices of Georgia’s Presidency of the Council of Europe, the first woman president of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili will be the guest of the Parliamentary Assembly who will first address the parliamentarians and then answer their questions. The Assembly will also be addressed by President of Moldova Igor Dodon, Georgian Foreign Minister and President of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe David Zalkaliani, and Council of Europe Secretary-General Marija Pejcinovic Buric.

In the course of the five-day session the Parliamentary Assembly will discuss the complementary joint procedure between the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly in response to a serious violation by a member State of its statutory obligations, the functioning of democratic institutions in Poland, reported cases of political prisoners in Azerbaijan, setting minimum standards for electoral systems in order to offer the basis for free and fair elections, threats to media freedom and journalists’ security in Europe and the protection of freedom of religion or belief in the workplace. The Assembly will also have two public debates – on the smuggling of migrants and missing refugee and migrant children, and on organ transplant tourism and trafficking in human tissues and cells

At the session, the Parliamentary Assembly will also elect judges to the European Court of Human Rights from France. The session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will be held from 27 to 31 January.