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I know Amazon is not a huge player in Europe at this time but that is going to change. Amazon has one of the few international e-readers with 3G or WiFi access. Just reading this board you can see more and more people in Europe buying Kindles because the Amazon bookstore is pretty darn good and because the device is easily used when travelling. As the Kindle grows in use throughout Europe, Publishers will probably make the decision to make their e-books available through Amazon in order to maximize their profits.
I have no idea how geo restrictions influence this mess. For example, are there different contracts signed to release a book in France then in Germany then in the UK? I also don't know how different countries laws regarding the pricing of e-books plays in all of this.
The difference with an individual author chosing to self publish his e-books through Amazon, or any other book seller, and not using a Publisher is that the individual author should be able to determine what markets the book is available in. So a French Author who controls his e-book rights should be able to chose to publish with Amazon and make that book available in France. If I was a well known author and realized that I could make 70% royalties for the sale of my e-book self publishing through Amazon, I would seriously consider going that route. If enough authors in Europe start to do that, then the EPub/Mobi debate for Europe becomes as meaningless as it is in the US due to books being available across formats and the e-reader picture in Europe changes pretty drastically.
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