“the usual stuff about the Enlightenment, “burkas” (he probably doesn’t mean them, because nobody wears them here, but the signifier is what counts) and such.”

My guess is that someone from the Brussels press corps asked Schaeuble about his position concerning the Burka. There was a big debate about the Burqua in Britain caused by Straw, but not in Germany.

I am not a CDU supporter, but I think you are not quite fair to Schaeuble in your comments about “the sort of dialogue CDU politicians usually like - where one party says “yes” a lot.”

Germany has neglected the integration of immigrants for decades. We as a society have made many mistakes. We were not interested in integrating immigrants, but treated them as Guestworkers. We have a lot to catch up. And our politicians need to do a lot as well.
Asking some Muslim groups and representatives some tough questions about integration is justified.
A fair dialogue is necessary. Not the kind of dialogue were one party just says “yes.” I don’t know much about the first Islam conference we had recently, but I think it was better received than you suggest.
Schaeuble is the first Minister of the Interior to organize this high-level dialogue and he should get credit for it, I believe.

Here is the Work programme of the German Conference on Islam. As you see, it is not just about burkas. I guess Schaeuble wants to see a similar debate on the EU level.

(1) The German social system and German values

* Equality between men and women
* Developing an informed political opinion
* Family/education/self-determination of young people
* Accepting the diversity of democratic cultures
* Secularisation (international comparison of criteria and trends)

(2) Religious issues and the German understanding of constitution

* Separation of the state and church as a basic principle
* Dealing with religious symbols
* Mosque-building
* Islamic religious instruction in German and under state control of the Länder
* Providing/expressing the intention to take German lessons (policy of give and take); pre-school instruction/models at Länder level
* Equality of girls and boys, co-education (physical education and swimming lessons, school trips, sex education, attitude of Muslim boys to non-Muslim girls of their own age, etc.)
* Training of imams/chairs for Islamic studies (universities/colleges)

(3) The private sector and the media as bridge-builders

* Young people on the job market (e.g. training)
* Recruitment policy in the private sector and public sector/self-employment
* Information policy to overcome prejudices in the Turkish media
* Information policy to overcome prejudices in the German media
* Religious and cultural identity of select personalities/role models
* Secular forms of Islam

(4) Security and Islamism

* Additional issues of internal security, Islamist activities against the free democratic basic order and the prevention and exposing of Islamist acts of violence will be debated in a discussion group assigned to the Conference.

More information in English:
http://www.bmi.bund.de/cln_012/nn_1026710/Internet/Content/Themen/Deutsche__Islam__Konferenz/DatenUndFakten/Islamkonferenz__Kurzinfo__en.html

If you get a chance, you should definitely see the mokumentary “Weltverbesserungsmassnahmen”

“An episodic film for a slow workout of the “utopian muscle”. With a gentle yet critical eye and a satirical manner, this film shows what happens when Germans try to change the world. Even the ideas which appear the strangest and most far-fetched are given a chance at becoming a reality.”

One of those measures is that shorter folks should wear shoes with high heels. The shorter you are the higher the heels should be. This would lead to more equality since we then can look eye-to-eye.

In German: http://www.zeit.de/2004/32/Weltverbesserer

Trailer:
http://www.datenstrudel.de/projekte/wvm.mov

”give Europe a soul”

I guess Merkel has spend too much time with Bush, who saw Merkel’s soul:
http://atlanticreview.org/archives/315-guide.html

(no, I know it bloody well ISN’T 50 years old. That was the Treaty of Rome and the EEC)

For example, the draft constitution includes a provision that the budget will always be balanced. It assumes monetary policy will eternally be hard, regardless of future ideas as to the real purpose of monetary policy. It is pretty hostile to any future economic leftism, and seems to assume that Europe’s half-century dalliance with social democratic policies is over forever.

It seems to me that the other big mistake is the perversely Hegelian notion of federalism, in the sense that the object is to establish a rigid structure of uniform rights and responsibilities. In a country riven by extreme sectional divisions like the USA, this was necessary: there was one sectional division, and naturally this single sectional division was explosive and held down by measures to impose an artificial parity among the states.

But Europe c.2007 doesn’t have an explosive sectional division. It has many minor ones, all of which are manageable. The EU could avail itself of a cooperative union model, rather than attempt to replicate itself as a sort of USA 2.0. I would argue that many of the causes of state failure in the USA (e.g., the unmanagable imperial ambitions of our elites) arise from the Hegelian character of the federal union, and far-sighted EU administrators might be able to avoid a trajectory of hegemony-hubris-catastrophe that seems to be afflicting us.