Europeans continue to debate the integration question: how much, how soon, who, and so on. It’s certainly a difficult problem, as there is a great deal of difference between, say, Denmark, and Portugal, or Ireland and Romania.

Here’s my very concrete suggestion to enhance European integration: get U-Haul and a few of its competitors to set up shop over here. Of course, Europe isn’t without car and truck rental, but a year ago, when we moved from Padova to Innsbruck, not one of them had a one-way service, where we could drop the truck off in Innsbruck. Instead, we had to enlist the help of my wife’s parents in order to return the truck to Italy. Can you imagine not being able to rent a truck and drop it off in other state? Padova is only 4 hours from Innsbruck, which in a lot of states in the western US, isn’t even enough to cross the state. It’s even possible to go there and back in a (long) day. Want to do a truly long distance move – say, Spain to Finland? As far as I know, you’re simply out of luck, either rent a truck and go both ways, doubling the price and time pay a ton to have it shipped, or sell off most of your worldly possessions and shove what you can in your car. In any case, not an ideal situation, and one of those little things that keeps Europeans farther apart.