A great deal of the fascination Barack Obama elicits in Europe is rooted in the acknowledgment that Europe lags behind the U.S. in the integration and political representation of its ethnic and religious minorities.
Although a fifth of Germany's residents are of foreign descent, for instance, less than 10 of the Bundestag's 600-plus seats are occupied by ethnic minorities; the house of representatives of Vienna, Austria -- where 25 percent of the city's 2 million citizens originate from abroad -- has only three. ...
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