The situation in the article is embarrassing. On the flip side, the US is really big. 4 US states are larger than germany. Getting the visa sounds like a pain in the ass, but it's more like a visa for the EU, rather than member nations.
cough The whole US of A has only less than 4 times the population (308,745,538) of Germany (81,757,600) according to Wikipedia..
Comparing USA and EU: The EU has 501,064,211 people, according to the same source. Like - 160% of the US. And, as others pointed out in this thread: Large parts of it are part of the Schengen treaty(?) and therefor rather easy for travellers.
You're misunderstanding a little -- he's saying that the USA is like its own Schengen Area (according to wikipedia, ~400 million). So for travelers from outside the EU, you just need one visa to enter and then you can move about freely. Similarly, you just need one US visa and you can go from NY to California freely.
I probably (wrongly) conflated the two parts (4 states are larger than.. vs. large area in which you can move rather freely). No offense intended and I see the point now.
