Connecting Central Europe, North to South

Central Europe has a number of borders and natural choke points that can make traveling difficult. "With their tightly interlinked shipping lanes and industrial supply chains, Copenhagen and Hamburg are already one economy in many senses. But getting between them is a hassle," according to an article in The Economist. Another hassle waits in crossing the Austrian and Swiss Alps, but projects including a Brenner Tunnel are bringing trains under the Alps to make this travel easier than it's ever been before.

The split between Eastern and Western Europe might be famous, but from a geographic perspective the split between northern and southern Europe is more pronounced, The Economist argues. "It is soluble. But the continent’s north-south rift is in many ways deeper: it involves intransigent barriers like high mountains and foaming seas, as well as deep cultural and economic differences. In its own way, the Malmo-Palermo express would be as great a political achievement as its Paris-Moscow counterpart," The Economist contends.