The Chairman of the Swedish delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), who is also the Chair of the PACE Political Affairs Committee, Mr Göran Lindblad, will lead the official PACE delegation scheduled to visit Minsk on 16 to 19 February upon invitation of the Belarusian parliament. One objective of the visit is to assess the willingness of the Belarusian authorities to approach the Council of Europe and embrace the values of the organisation. Hopefully, this will enable the PACE to invite Belarusian parliamentarians to participate in the assembly meetings in the future. Belarus - the only country in Europe that is not a member of the Council of Europe – has previously had special guest status in the PACE. This status was suspended due to deficient observance of Council of Europe values regarding human rights, democracy and rule of law.