The Secretary General of the 47-nation Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, will visit the Belgian capital Brussels on Thursday 12 February.

At 9am, the Secretary General will give the opening speech at an international conference on the Future of the Protection of Social Rights in Europe organised by the Belgian authorities as part of the country’s on-going chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers.

Secretary General Jagland will subsequently have bilateral talks with Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders to discuss a number of issues including the situation in Ukraine and next month’s high-level conference in Brussels on the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights.