Of the 30, 15 are government representatives – from the federal, state and communal levels. The other 15 are representatives of religious and secular Muslims including representatives of the four main Muslim organizations in Germany: the Turkish Directorate of religious Affairs (DITIB), the Islamic Council, the Association of Islamic Cultural Centers (VIKZ) and the Central Council of Muslims (ZDM).

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble declared in parliament the very next day: “Islam is a part of Germany and Europe. Islam is a part of our present and our future.”

‘Islam must catch up on Enlightenment, if it’s to become native to Europe,’ Interior Minister Schäuble said. Kölnische Rundschau

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) first invited the participants to a discussion, and then for snacks. But for practicising Muslims, Ramadan, the month of fasting, had already begun. Lausitzer Rundschau

There’s not just one kind of Islam in Germany but a whole range of different schools and currents of religious thought and behaviour, from conservative-fundamentalist to enlightened-liberal. Lübecker Nachrichten

We train Catholic and Protestant priests and even rabbi’s (here in Germany) – but Imams are still imported. Braunschweiger Zeitung

Three million Muslims live in this country; they have become an independent pillar of our society; they want to train Imams, build mosques and they demand Islam instruction in schools - in German. Many (Germans) find this difficult to accept since the alien nature of Islam as a religion is disturbing to them, or since they are frightened by the supposed potential for violence. Lausitzer Rundschau

(The task of) evolving a German Islam with the help of the persons concerned… Mitteldeutsche Zeitung

…an Islam reconciled with European ideals… Stuttgarter Zeitung

The objectives of the participants in the Conference provide little ground for optimism. These objectives are fundamentally different and are bound to lead to major disputes at some stage or another. For the German government, the objective is to win over the Muslims living in Germany to a more modern attitude towards their religion. The leaders of the Muslim organizations would hardly see any profit in that: they don’t want to lose their flock to a liberal state; rather, they want the state to enter into an agreement with them. Naturally, that does not make the Islam Conference superfluous, quite the contrary: the attempt to come to an agreement regarding peaceful coexistence with the three million Muslims in Germany seems urgently necessary. But state and society cannot make any major compromises: there’s not much scope for compromise where our basic values are concerned. Stuttgarter Nachrichten

There’s one thing that the Islam Conference should not degenerate into: an exchange of meaningless pleasantries. The situation is far too earnest and the problems far too diverse for that. And the meeting should not become an occasion for something else: a congregation of excitable Muslims who consider playing the offended to be a good argument, if an argument at all. There are problems of integration which have their source in the fact that many of these immigrants come from other cultures. And it just happens that many of the countries that the Immigrants come from are Islamic in nature. As such, the unfortunately extant tendency to reject all mention of such real problems – which have their origin in traditional religious practice – as criticism of Islam, is not very helpful. Südwest Presse

One would be much farther ahead if the Muslims in Germany would recognize - and defend – not just the economic, but also the social advantages of a free world in which men and women have equal rights. Rheinische Post

If the majority (in society) were to give recognition to Islam, it might change the attitude of Muslims towards the country (Germany). Perhaps they will also find it easier to value the freedoms which so many of them find problematic today. The self-realization of women would be one such. Neue Presse

…unfortunately, the persons who really matter are not to be found at Schäuble’s round table: the violence-prone Islamists. Leipziger Volkszeitung