What is going on in this world? I was reading news today that the parties on the right side of political spectrum are gaining ground all over Europe. US already has Republicans in power. Every country is becoming more nationalistic. What is driving this change? AFAICT there are no major issues that should have caused this.
For years now, the US hasn't honored visa-free travel for five eastern European countries. That technically violates the visa-free reciprocity agreement, so the EP occasionally makes some noise about enforcing those rules. The EC doesn't want to, nor do actual European member states (even the ones not getting reciprocity!) because it would hugely deter tourism, something places like Greece really can't afford.
So: the EC is rattling a saber to press the US to hurry up on a narrow bureaucratic issue. The US will probably continue to ignore them, and the EC will probably not do anything about it. A bunch of news orgs looking for clicks slapped dramatic headlines on that and spun it as closely related to current events, making all of us a little more ignorant.