Rumblings of Discontent

Hailed by the head of Germany's Turkish Community, Kenan Kolat, as an "historic day" which ushered in a "new era of immigration policy," the first ever Integration Summit held in Chancellor Angela Merkel's office last summer was broadly seen as a resounding success.

But one year on, the euphoria has faded. The fly in the ointment is the German Parliament's newly approved immigration law, which has angered Muslim groups to such an extent that many feel the upcoming second integration summit on July 12 is nothing but a farce.

Betrayed

This time round, Kenan Kolat still hasn't decided whether he'll even attend.

Together with Yasar Bilgin, who heads up the Council of Turkish Citizens in German, he feels betrayed by Berlin's latest amendments to the immigration law passed in 2005.

"We are considering whether we will voice our protest at the new changes to the law at the summit or whether we will refuse to appear," he told Spiegel Online, stressing that he sees the new law as hostile to Turks and unconstitutional.

"The government makes out to us that everything is hunky dory," he said. "They tell us that we're making progress on the integration front and then they make a decision completely over our heads. It's hypocrisy."

United in anger

Anger has united many of the Turkish community's otherwise divided representative groups. Across the board, there is agreement that the government has left them out in the cold.

"I am deeply disappointed," said Bekir Alboga from the Turkish Directorate for Religious Affairs (DITIB) in an interview with Spiegel Online. "This is political duplicity and there is no point taking part in the summit."

"We are not interested in playing bit parts at this meeting and thereby legitimating the law," he added.

He said that his organization would not be attending unless the immigration law is rejected by the German Council at the imminent vote.

The brunt of Alboga's criticism is directed at the new clause on spousal immigration, which states that a foreigner who wants to bring his wife to Germany must be able to prove that she can earn her own living. Were a German national to bring a foreign wife to the country, this would not apply.

"At last year's summit, the government reiterated the importance of talking to us, not about us," he said. "But we were never told about the tightening of residency regulations. We were excluded from these discussions."

Taking part, not sitting out

The upcoming summit will be led by Maria Böhmer of the CDU, who is in charge of immigration issues in the government. She feels that organizations such as those fronted by Kolat and Alboga have devoted years to securing participation in the integration debate, and that they will undo all the good work by refusing to sit at a table with the chancellor.

"It is in the interests of Germany's 2.5 million Turks to be represented by these organizations at the summit," she said.

A spokesman at the Interior Ministry stressed it would be counter-productive for Germany's minorities to express their dissatisfaction with Berlin by sitting out the debate.

"Integration must be based on active participation, not lack of it," he said.

The government estimates that 15 million people living in Germany, which has a total population of 82 million, have an immigrant background of some kind -- either with roots outside the country or as ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union.