In future an immigrant arriving in Germany and wishing to stay may have to sign an "integration contract". That is the idea of the Integration Minister, Maria Boehmer.
The contract would set out basic German "values," including "freedom of speech" and "equal rights for women". The idea behind this is the club: if you join you have to accept the rules.
"Anyone who wants to live here for a long time," says the minister, "and who wants to work has to say 'yes' to our country". In different forms ideas like this are surfacing across Europe. The concern is that significant parts of European cities exist as "parallel societies". There is not a shared identity and so there is not a common citizenship. [BBC] Read more
