Italy's foreign minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi was on Friday due to attend a meeting of Europe's top human rights watchdog the Council of Europe in Helsinki, where the challenges posed by artificial intelligence technology will be high on the agenda, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"The meeting will adopt relevant decisions relative to: the rights and obligations of Member States and the action of statutory bodies; the protection and promotion of a functionally structured role of civil society; an effective protection of human rights, democracy and the Rule of Law, especially in the context of the challenges posed by the development of artificial intelligence technology," said the statement.
Council of Europe foreign ministers were also due on Friday to endorse a deal under which Russia will keep its membership. Russia was stripped of its voting rights in the 47-nation organisation in 2014 after Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine. Moscow retaliated in 2017 by suspending its 33 million euro annual contributions, or about 7 percent of the body’s annual budget.
Friday's meeting, hosted by the Finnish rotating Presidency, marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Strasburg-based body of which Italy is a founding member.
Besides 47 European member states, The Council of Europe now contains five Observer States (Canada, Japan, Mexico, Holy See and the United States).
