The 26th meeting of the Committee of the Parties of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings was held in Strasbourg on 12 June 2020 (a combination of physical and online meeting).

The Committee re-elected Ambassador Corina Călugăru (Republic of Moldova) as Chair for a second term of office and elected Ambassador Christian Meuwly (Switzerland) as Vice-Chair for a first term of office.

The Committee adopted recommendations addressed to the Governments of the Czech Republic (first evaluation round), Monaco (first/second evaluation round), and Austria, Cyprus and Slovak Republic (third evaluation round).

The Committee also considered reports submitted by the authorities of Belarus and Greece concerning measures taken to comply with the Committee of the Parties’ first round recommendations on the implementation of the Convention, as well as reports submitted by the authorities of Azerbaijan, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Ukraine concerning measures taken to comply with the Committee of the Parties’ second round recommendations on the implementation of the Convention. These reports will be made public on the Council of Europe’s Anti-Trafficking website.

Further, the Committee discussed the follow-up to be given to Parliamentary Assembly Resolution 2323 (2020) on concerted action against human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants, as well as to the round-table “Stepping up Council of Europe action against trafficking in human beings in the digital age” (Strasbourg, 17 December 2019).